“This was one of the best races of my career,” Marc Marquez says. “It gave me an amazing feeling because it required incredible concentration to manage the tension the whole time. It was very easy to make a mistake, and that’s why I decided to attack only on the final lap.
“That lap was amazing; I took many risks, but with such a close season, it was worth trying to get the five extra points for the win. Of course I was thinking about the Championship the whole race. At the beginning the feeling wasn’t so good, probably because there was so much water on the track, and I had a couple of very scary moments. Lorenzo was amazingly fast early on, and so was Danilo later when he took the lead after Jorge’s crash, but I was able to follow him and finally to attack. Thanks to the team for the great job.
“I’m happy for everyone after what happened at Silverstone. We always try to be ready for every situation, so because we knew that changing the setup from wet to dry takes quite a long time at this track, we agreed that if I felt the track was drying, and there was even a small possibly of a flag-to-flag race, I would signal the team. So I did, and even if in the end that didn’t happen, it was right to do so as we got close to it. This Championship is amazing; anything can happen, but now we’ve returned to the top, equal on points with Andrea. The last five races will be very tough, but we’ll keep pushing and give it our 100%.”
With his win, Marquez is now equal with Dovizioso with 199 points. But due to more second-place finishes, Marquez is the leader. The series now breaks for two weeks ahead of the Grand Prix of Aragon at Motorland Aragon September 22-24.
Following is the official MotoGP recap of the San Marino Grand Prix.
But despite the challengers on the front row in the #SanMarinoGP, Ducati Team’s Jorge Lorenzo ot away best from Row 2, taking the lead through the first two corners after tousling with Marquez and shooting away into the distance.
Marquez slotted into second and Dovizioso in third, with Petrucci then slicing around the outside of Maverick Viñales (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) at the start of the second lap to begin his charge. After Viñales, the Pramac rider then shot past Dovizioso, beginning to hone in on Marquez and then taking over in second.
After setting the timesheets alight and clear in the lead, drama then struck the head of the race as Lorenzo suddenly highsided out at Turn 6 – rider ok – leaving Petrucci in the lead and a long game of highspeed chess to set in: Petrucci, Marquez, Dovizioso, and nothing between them.