Assen (The Netherlands), 27th Saturday June 2015: Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Valentino Rossi completed a perfect weekend at the TT Assen with an impeccable victory, the 111th in his career and his third of the 2015 season. Teammate Jorge Lorenzo also did a superb job at the overcast but dry track, coming from eighth on the grid, to take Yamaha to its fifth double podium of the season.
Valentino Rossi kicked off the Dutch Grand Prix from pole with a dream start to take the holeshot. He held a 0,426 advantage to Marc Marquez after the first lap. The Doctor tried to break away from his encroaching rival and the rapidly approaching Lorenzo and responded by dipping under the previous lap record, but was unable to shake his pursuers off.
Rossi had Marquez on his tail by lap four, but used his YZR-M1‘s nimble nature to the fullest to keep him at bay. He held on to his position until the Spaniard made his move going into turn one with seven laps to go, but the Doctor was far from defeated. Refusing to let his rival go he stuck close to Marquez and bided his time for four laps before retaking the lead.
The following laps had the fans on the edge of their seat. Valentino rode a personal best time on the penultimate lap of 1‘33.673 to create a margin, but Marquez closed in on him in the second half of the last lap. The crowd went wild when the Spaniard made his move going into the chicane for the final time clipping the side of the YZR-M1 and forcing Rossi to run straight through a patch of gravel. The Italian did well to hold on to the bike and reentered the track in front of his rival to take his third win of the season with a 1.242s advantage.
It was a lonely race for teammate Jorge Lorenzo. Starting from eighth on the grid he flew off the line, taking fifth in the first corner. With his teammate in his sights he had an incredible first lap and started to claw his way to the front. He overtook Aleix Espargarò and Pol Espargarò to finish the first lap in third, but the passes cost him valuable time.
The Spaniard put his head down to close the gap to Marquez in second place, but was unable to join the front-runners. With no other riders to spar with, he focused on managing the gap to the rider in fourth place and crossed the line 14.576s behind his teammate, claiming his fifth podium in a row.
The results see Rossi hold on to the lead in the championship with a 163 points total. He is now 10 points ahead of teammate Lorenzo in second place.
There is little time for Rossi to recover from today‘s epic battle; he will be heading straight to the United Kingdom for the Goodwood Festival of Speed this evening and tomorrow. After this prestigious event, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP will move on to Germany for the next round at Sachsenring in two weeks’ time.
Bridgestone report adds:
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi signed off a perfect weekend in the Netherlands by emerging victorious from a fantastic battle with Repsol Honda Team’s Marc Marquez to extend his lead in the MotoGP™ championship standings after the race held on a Saturday.
Starting from pole position, Rossi led the opening laps of the race but was closely followed by Marquez throughout the twenty-six lap contest. After relinquishing the race lead to Marquez on lap twenty, Rossi was able to seize back the advantage with a few laps remaining and then held off an attempted pass by Marquez at the final chicane on the last lap to take victory by 1.242 seconds ahead of the reigning World Champion. A further thirteen seconds back in third place was J
Valentino-Rossi—Movistar-Yamaha-MotoGP—Dutch-MotoGP-race-winner-on-the-podium. A Movistar-Yamaha-image
orge Lorenzo, who after starting in eighth place on the grid was able to scythe through the field on his Yamaha M1 to secure a place on the rostrum. All riders on the podium selected the medium rear slick for the race, but although both Rossi and Lorenzo opted for the soft compound front slick, Marquez selected the medium compound front slick for the race and was the only rider to use this option for the Dutch Grand Prix.
Weather conditions were slightly cooler than yesterday but fine throughout the day, with a peak track temperature of 32°C recorded during the race. The stable weather allowed the riders to circulate at record pace, with Marquez setting a new Assen Circuit Record Lap time of 1’33.617 on lap four while Rossi’s race finish time was also a new record, beating the previous best race finish time by over twenty-five seconds. Tyre choice showed a strong preference for the soft compound front slick, with all the riders except Marquez selecting this option, while for the rear tyre the field was evenly split, with twelve riders each selecting the soft and medium compound rear slicks.
Rossi’s third victory of the year helps him extend his lead over teammate Lorenzo to ten points, while Andrea Iannone consolidates third position on the championship table and sits 46 points behind Lorenzo after taking fourth place at Assen.
Hiroshi Yamada – Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Department
“Today we saw a great battle for the race victory but in the end Valentino was too strong so congratulations to him and also to Yamaha for securing their sixth consecutive victory. I am happy that today we had the largest race day crowd at Assen since 2002 and it seems the great racing we are seeing on track is bringing more and more fans to MotoGP. I am very pleased that that new Circuit Best Lap, Circuit Record Lap and overall race time records were set this weekend, as Assen is a very demanding circuit and our tyre allocation performed perfectly. I am sad to hear the news that Stefan Bradl broke his scaphoid in a crash during the race and I wish him a speedy recovery and hope he is able to take part in his home race in a couple of weeks’ time.”
Masao Azuma – Chief Engineer, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department
“It was a bit cooler today but generally the conditions were very similar to what we experienced earlier on the weekend. As a result, tyre choice amongst the riders was the same that we saw yesterday afternoon in Free Practice 4 with almost every rider preferring the soft compound front slick. For the rear tyre, it was evenly split between the soft and medium compound rear and both of these options performed very consistently over race distance. It was good to have a weekend at Assen with generally stable weather conditions as this allowed the riders to show just how quickly and consistently they could lap at Assen on our latest generation of MotoGP tyres.”
“This was a very important race for me as I was competitive all weekend and started from pole position. I pushed a lot for the whole race and my pace was very quick but Marc was able to stay close to me. I tried to play all my cards and my last two laps were really strong, but Marc tried to pass me into the last chicane but I was already through the corner. To take twenty-five points is important and it was a great victory here in Assen.”
