PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi pulled off another epic race win at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit to take his 110th Grand Prix victory. After starting on the grid in eighth, Rossi was able to move up into second and chase down race leader Marc Marquez on the Repsol Honda to battle for the win.
With 14 laps to go Marquez had around a 4.2 second gap on Rossi, but the young Marquez made an error with his gamble on the softer rear tire option—hard versus Rossi’s extra hard—and 11 laps later the pair were battling for the win. Coming out on top was Rossi, as Marquez made contact with Rossi twice and went down. He was unable to rejoin the race and ultimately lost valuable points; now trailing Rossi by 30 points.
The incident was immediately under review by race direction and was deemed a racing incident.
“I’m sorry for the incident with Marc, but I feel him touch me before in the center of the corner and after another time,” Rossi said. “And I’m very sorry for him that he’s crash. I hope that he’s okay. But is a great race. I am very happy.
“You know I had the pace, I know that I have to push, that Marc [Marquez] was far, but I know have decided for the right tire. So I try to stay concentrated to ride always at a hundred percent and the bike was great. I am so happy—two victories already and I think that we can fight to the end.”
Also happy, was fellow Italian Andrea Dovizioso who earned his third successive second place for the factory Ducati squad this season. Dovizioso was right there behind Rossi, but was unable to stay with him and settled in for the podium position.
“He was half a tenths faster than me,” Dovizioso said. “I push really hard to try to stay with him but in some corners I lose more than one tenths and it was enough that I couldn’t stay with him. But I’m really happy. We struggle a lot this weekend… Thank you to the team. Thank you to Ducati and all the people working at home.”
CWM LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow took his first podium for his new team, edging out Dovizioso’s teammate Andrea Iannone in the final moments of the race.
“Yeah, it was quite a tough race with plus zero on the pit board all the time, “ Crutchlow said. “I made some mistakes and lost the group to Valentino [Rossi] and Dovi [Andrea Dovizioso], in one lap really. But I was happy with the pace we did a good job all weekend. We took a gamble with the tire same as Marc and it paid off I think because we had better corner entry…
“A great job by CWM LCR Honda, they’ve done a great job all weekend. We’ve worked hard and we’ve worked hard for this podium I’d like to thank the people that wrote me off and I’d like to thank the team for third place.”
In fifth was Rossi’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo ahead of Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Bradley Smith.
Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Aleix Espargaro had an impressive showing at the start of the race, taking the hole shot from the second spot on the grid and fighting with the lead pack for the first couple of laps. He ultimately dropped back and ended the race in seventh ahead of younger brother Pol Esparagaro on other Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine.
Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS’s Scott Redding edged out Aleix’ teammate Maverick Vinales, the pair finishing ninth and 10th, respectively.
Jack Miller was the top Open Class finisher in 12th on the CWM LCR production Honda. American Nicky Hayden was 16th on the Aspar production Honda.
2015 Termas de Rio Hondo
MotoGP Results
1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati)
3. Cal Crutchlow (Honda)
4. Andrea Iannone (Ducati)
5. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
6. Bradley Smith (Yamaha)
7. Aleix Espargaro (Suzuki)
8. Pol Espargaro (Yamaha)
9. Scott Redding (Honda)
10. Maverick Vinales (Suzuki)
