Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa scored a fantastic one-two result in today’s Aragon Grand Prix, starting from the second row of the grid, the former on a hard-hard Michelin tyre combination, the latter on medium-medium. Both Repsol Honda Team riders fought their way forward to take the squad’s seventh double podium of the season. They were followed in by a determined Jorge Lorenzo who lead for most of the race.

Marc’s 60th career win is also his fifth this year and his ninth podium of the season (the seventh out of the last eight races), helping him to pull a small gap of 16 points over Andrea Dovizioso and 28 points over Maverick Viñales, his two closest pursuers in the title chase.

After setting the race fastest lap in 1’49.140, Dani took his 111th podium finish out of 195 races in the Premier class, in which he now has the most starts of any Spanish rider (Carlos Checa being second with 194). Dani’s eighth podium of the season moved him up to fourth in the Championship classification with 170 points, 54 down on his teammate with four rounds to go.

Marc Marquez

“I’m very very happy with this victory because it was a tough race. Yesterday I wasn’t feeling totally comfortable with the bike, and today I was struggling again except in the warm-up; I don’t really know why. Anyway, racing at one of my favourite tracks, close to my home and in front of my fans, gave me extra motivation. I pushed hard and in some corners I just clicked the off-button in my head, even if I crashed twice yesterday. I saw that Viñales and Dovi were struggling a bit and knew it was the moment to push, so I did. There were a few scary moments, once when I was trying to overtake Valentino; he was tighter in that corner than I was expecting, and to avoid a clash I released the brakes, only to realize that Lorenzo was right there! So I went off the track, and at that moment I cooled down a bit, even if I continued to try and close the gap. Once I passed Lorenzo, I had to keep going as I saw that Dani was coming very fast. Anyway, that’s the Marquez style! Of course it’s important to think of the Championship, but the situation now requires that we give it everything. So we’ll try to continue with the same motivation and mentality race by race, giving our 100 per cent.”

Dani Pedrosa

“Maybe if I could have overtaken Maverick a little bit earlier I would have had a better chance to fight for the win, but well, I’m still very happy with my race today! The goal was try and fight for the podium or the win, and we achieved that. So yes, I have some small regrets, but at the same time I couldn’t have done any better in the beginning as I was on the medium rear like Maverick and wasn’t able to pass him for a while. I also had to manage the tyre wear in order to be fast at the end, which I was. I wasn’t sure why we suddenly had some gap to recover to the front, as the others had more or less the same pace. Anyway, when I finally passed him, the gap was there, so I started pushing hard, made some good passes and a good recovery, and had a very strong race. I put a lot of passion into it, and this is good for me and the team.”

Jorge Lorenzo

“It was a very tough race but we were able to manage it well, and in the end we scored an important podium finish. This third place has a much better flavour than the one at Jerez because we finished very close to the winner and we fought right until the very end. It’s a pity I wasn’t able to keep the same pace in the last seven laps, but to be competitive in the race we had no other choice but use the soft rear tyre even though we knew that in the last few laps the performance was going to drop. In any case it’s important to see that we’re continuing to make progress and that I’m getting better every race and so I’m sure my first win will come soon.”

MotoGP Aragon 2017 results

  • 1. Marc Marquez (Honda ESP) 42’06.816
  • 2. Daniel Pedrosa (Honda ESP) 00’00.879
  • 3. Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati ESP) 00’02.028
  • 4. Maverick Viñales (Yamaha ESP) 00’05.256
  • 5. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha ITA) 00’05.882
  • 6. Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia ESP) 00’06.962
  • 7. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati ITA) 00’07.455
  • 8. Alvaro Bautista (Ducati ESP) 00’07.910
  • 9. Johann Zarco (Yamaha FRA) 00’13.002
  • 10. Pol Espargaro (KTM ESP) 00’14.075
  • 11. Mika Kallio (KTM FIN) 00’17.192
  • 12. Andrea Iannone (Suzuki ITA) 00’20.632
  • 13. Jack Miller (Honda AUS) 00’23.886
  • 14. Scott Redding (Ducati GBR) 00’25.523
  • 15. Tito Rabat (Honda ESP) 00’26.082
  • 16. Jonas Folger (Yamaha DEU) 00’30.302
  • 17. Alex Rins (Suzuki ESP) 00’31.874
  • 18. Hector Barbera (Ducati ESP) 00’31.948
  • 19. Bradley Smith (KTM GBR) 00’36.296
  • 20 Danilo Petrucci (Ducati ITA) 00’37.842
  • 21 Loris Baz (Ducati FRA) 00’47.599
  • 22 Sam Lowes (Aprilia GBR) 00’47.647
  • 23 Cal Crutchlow (Honda GBR) 7 laps
  • 24 Karel Abraham (Ducati CZE) 13 laps

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