Dominant Marquez takes Honda´s 300th premier class win in France

USPA NEWS - Marc Marquez took his third win of the 2019 season with another dominating performance as teammate Jorge Lorenzo took his best finish of the season with 11th.
Cold conditions from morning Warm Up carried through until the start of the French Grand Prix at 14:00 local time, a track temperature of just 18°C made for treacherous opening laps.

Marc Marquez was able to keep clear of trouble to open a small advantage, Jack Miller the only rider able to stay with him. Miller was briefly able to get past, but the Repsol Honda Team rider responded to the challenge on lap six and retook the lead. Steadily building his lead lap-by-lap, Marquez crossed the line 1.9 seconds clear of Dovizioso, claiming Honda´s 300th win in the premier class.

The win is also Marquez´s 47th in the premier class, drawing equal with Jorge Lorenzo in third on the all time premier class wins list. Marquez now extends his lead in the MotoGP World Championship to eight points, Honda maintaining a healthy advantage in the Constructor Championship.

The Ducati Team achieved a great collective result at Le Mans, home of the French GP, where both Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci rode their factory Desmosedici GP bikes to a podium finish, conquering second and third place respectively on the finish line, and Jack Miller finished in fourth, first among Independent riders, onboard the Pramac Racing Team's GP19.

Despite getting off to a blistering start, Dovizioso was involved in a contact coming out of the second corner during the first lap and was forced to recover positions, but was able to seize second place half-way through the race and defend it until the checkered flag. Starting from first row, Petrucci also showed resilience as he climbed back after losing positions during the second lap, putting himself just behind his teammate with seven laps to go.

Dovizioso and Petrucci then enjoyed a spectacular and clean fight for second position, crossing trajectories several times in the final phases until the checkered flag. Dovizioso thus seized his second podium with Ducati at Le Mans after finishing third in 2015, while Petrucci celebrated his first podium as a factory rider exactly one year after his last top-three finish, when he was second at Le Mans in 2018 with the Pramac Racing Team. After five rounds, Dovizioso is second in the Rider standings with 87 points ““ just eight points shy of the provisional lead ““ while Petrucci is fifth with 57 points; Ducati is second in the Manufacturers standings with 90 points, while the Ducati Team leads the Team rankings with 144 points.

Marc Marquez 1st “Of course here in Le Mans it´s always difficult with the temperature and the weather, especially today. I think this is the first time I have had a race where I had the soft tyre in the front but it was the safest option. I was focused on being consistent until I saw the gap increasing, I pushed a little bit more and into the low 32s until I saw I had two seconds. I´m happy with today´s result and it is fantastic to be able to take Honda´s 300th premier class win!“

Andrea Dovizioso 2nd "I'm happy with my result because the conditions have been really tricky here all weekend and, nonetheless, we managed to seize second position in both the race and the championship. That said, we need to stay focused and try to make further improvements if we want to fight with Márquez until the end. I couldn't keep his pace until the checkered flag because the rear tyre dropped a bit too much, and in the final laps I also had to fend off Danilo's comeback. It was a good fight, and I'm not surprised by his speed, as I know him well. We scored the best possible result and the championship is still open. I can't wait to race again in two weeks' time at Mugello, a track we know quite well and on which we achieved important results in the recent past."

Danilo Petrucci 3rd "It was great race and I'm so happy to finally be back on the podium, exactly one year since the last time I stepped on it. In the past rounds I've been quite competitive, but not in qualifying, and this hindered my performance during the race. This time, we managed to start from first row but I made a couple of mistakes in the early laps and lost some ground. At one point I dropped all the way back to sixth, but I tried to stay calm and collected, pushing as hard as I could to close the gap. Towards the end, Andrea and I had a spectacular fight. He was stronger than me under acceleration, while I was able to recover some ground under braking, but I was never close enough to complete the maneuver and it also wouldn't have made any sense to take huge risks among teammates. The double podium is a great result for the whole team, and now we'll try to repeat that in Mugello."

GP of France - Race Classification:

1. Marc MARQUEZ Repsol Honda Team 41'53.647
2. Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati Team +1.984
3. Danilo PETRUCCI Ducati Team +2.142
4. Jack MILLER Pramac Racing +2.940
5. Valentino ROSSI Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP +3.053
6. Pol ESPARGARO Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +5.935
7. Franco MORBIDELLI Petronas Yamaha SRT +7.187
8. Fabio QUARTARARO Petronas Yamaha SRT +8.439
9. Cal CRUTCHLOW LCR Honda CASTROL +9.853
10. Alex RINS Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +13.709
11. Jorge LORENZO Repsol Honda Team +15.003
12. Aleix ESPARGARO Aprilia Racing Team Gresini +29.512
13. Johann ZARCO Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +33.061
14. Hafizh SYAHRIN Red Bull KTM Tech 3 +35.481

15. Miguel OLIVEIRA Red Bull KTM Tech 3 +36.044
16. Joan MIR Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 1 Lap

Not Classified
30 Takaaki NAKAGAMI LCR Honda IDEMITSU
29 Andrea IANNONE Aprilia Racing Team Gresini
12 Maverick VIÑALES Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP
63 Francesco BAGNAIA Pramac Racing
53 Tito RABAT Reale Avintia Racing

Excluded
17 Karel ABRAHAM Reale Avintia Racing

MotoGP Championship Standings:

1. Marc MARQUEZ Honda 95
2. Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati 87
3. Alex RINS Suzuki 75
4. Valentino ROSSI Yamaha 72
5. Danilo PETRUCCI Ducati 57
6. Jack MILLER Ducati 42
7. Cal CRUTCHLOW Honda 34
8. Franco MORBIDELLI Yamaha 34
9. Pol ESPARGARO KTM 31
10. Maverick VIÑALES Yamaha 30
11. Takaaki NAKAGAMI Honda 29
12. Fabio QUARTARARO Yamaha 25

13. Aleix ESPARGARO Aprilia 22
14. Jorge LORENZO Honda 16
15. Johann ZARCO KTM 10
16. Francesco BAGNAIA Ducati 9
17. Joan MIR Suzuki 8
18. Miguel OLIVEIRA KTM 8
19. Stefan BRADL Honda 6
20. Andrea IANNONE Aprilia 6
21. Hafizh SYAHRIN KTM 2
22. Tito RABAT Ducati 2
23. Karel ABRAHAM Ducati
24. Bradley SMITH Aprilia