Repsol Honda’s Pedrosa ends Marc Marquez’s winning streak: MotoGP

David Bodapati August 17, 2014

359 2 minutes read

Dani Pedrosa breaks the winning streak of Marquez at BRNO on Sunday. A Repsol Honda image

Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa set a scorching pace to take his first win of the MotoGP™ season ahead of the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP duo of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi who finished in second and third place respectively, according to a Bridgestone release.

On his way to victory, Pedrosa set a new Circuit Record Lap of 1’56.027 and kept a fast pace throughout the twenty-two laps of the Brno circuit, and despite a late push from Lorenzo, managed to cross the finish line 0.410 seconds ahead of his Spanish rival. Rossi enjoyed an entertaining battle with Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez during the middle stages of the race, before breaking away and comfortably claiming the final podium position. Today’s Czech Republic Grand Prix was the fastest ever race to take part at the Automotodrom Brno, with Pedrosa’s total race time being three seconds quicker than the existing record time set at last year’s Czech Republic Grand Prix.

In what has almost become a tradition on race day, drops of rain fell and dark clouds loomed as the riders set out on the formation lap, but the rain didn’t eventuate allowing the twenty-two laps of the race to be run in dry conditions. The peak track temperature during the race was 29°C which was 7°C down on the highest reading yesterday. The cooler temperatures and threat of rain resulted in four of the twenty-four starters selecting the soft compound front slick, with the other twenty riders opting for the medium compound front slick. Rear tyre choice saw every rider except one select the softest rear slick option available to them; medium compound for the Factory Honda and Yamaha, and soft compound for the Ducati and Open-class riders.

Although he finished off the podium for the first time this season, Marquez still holds a massive 77 point lead in the standings over his teammate Pedrosa, while Rossi is a further 13 points back and sits in third position overall on the championship points table.

Repsol Honda release adds: It was a day of mixed fortunes for the Repsol Honda Team in Brno as Dani Pedrosa won his first race since Malaysia 2013, but with it, ended Marc Marquez’ winning run as the Championship leader finished in 4th, only his third non-podium finish in the premier class.

It was another frantic start to the race with Marc dropping to 5th from his pole position start and Dani making up a position to 4th by the end of the first lap. By lap six, Dani had made his way through the field – setting a new fastest race lap (1’56.027) – and was 2nd behind race leader, Jorge Lorenzo. On lap six, he passed Jorge and never looked back, controlling the race perfectly to the end – setting a new fastest race time – and becoming the first rider other than Marc to win this season.

Marc lost some time battling with Iannone on lap five, but eventually passed him into 3rd and began to chase down the race leaders. However, on lap ten he began to lose time to Valentino who was chasing him and by lap thirteen he was unable to hold of the challenge. Marc held onto 4th and took important Championship points.

With this win, Dani has recovered 12 points on Marc and opened up the gap between him and Valentino in the Rider’s Championship. He now sits in second (77 points behind Marc) on 186 points, 13 ahead of Valentino. The Repsol Honda Team maintain their perfect 2014 season, winning every race, and extend their lead in the Team Championship to 139 points over their second place rivals and Honda now lead the Constructor Championship by 81 points. Since the introduction of the four-stroke MotoGP class in 2002, Honda have the most victories (six) at Brno with Honda riders winning for the past four consecutive years.

The team will be back on track tomorrow for an Official Post-Race Test, before heading to Great Britain for the next race on 31st August.