Jerez MotoGP: Pedrosa wins as Marquez and Lorenzo collide

Dani Pedrosa rode to an easy race victory at his home GP at Jerez, but the real talk of the race was a dramatic last corner collision between rookie Marc Marquez and defending champion Jorge Lorenzo.

Lorenzo led early in the race, but a hard charging Pedrosa soon came through and got away, pulling out a gap right away as Lorenzo tussled with Pedrosa’s Repsol Honda teammate Marquez.

Despite breaking away from him, Marquez managed to pull back in the gap in the closing stages of the race, attempting passes multiple times in the last laps. He then made a dramatic move on the last corner, echoing Valentino Rossi’s infamous pass on Sete Gibernau in 2005.

He went inside the defending champion, bumping him and forcing him to sit up, allowing Marquez to secure second in the dash to the line.

Valentino Rossi was a lonely fourth, after battling early on with Britain’s Cal Crutchlow, who was also forced to fend off the advances of Bautista to secure fifth place.

Bradley Smith got hsi first top ten finish, finshing tenth after a race-long fight with top CRT Aleix Espargaro, to beat him to take ninth.

Michael Laverty rode an excellent race on the Paul Bird CRT machine to score the first points of his GP career in 13th.

The early stages of the race saw a number of crashes, with Bradl, Iannone, Pesek, de Puniet and Hernandez all falling within two laps.

Lorenzo refused to comment on the incident with Marquez, but the rookie said “I want to say sorry to Jorge, but something like that has happened many times in that corner. If he did it to me I’d also be angry, but many times it has happened there, and in the last lap you have to give it 100%.”

1 26 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 45’17.632
2 93 Marc MARQUEZ SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda +2.487
3 99 Jorge LORENZO SPA Yamaha Factory Racing Yamaha +5.089
4 46 Valentino ROSSI ITA Yamaha Factory Racing Yamaha +8.914
5 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha +12.663
6 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA SPA GO&FUN Honda Gresini Honda +15.094
7 69 Nicky HAYDEN USA Ducati Team Ducati +25.632
8 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA Ducati Team Ducati +41.881
9 41 Aleix ESPARGARO SPA Power Electronics Aspar ART +43.812
10 38 Bradley SMITH GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha +44.461
11 51 Michele PIRRO ITA Ducati Test Team Ducati +45.974
12 8 Hector BARBERA SPA Avintia Blusens FTR +59.859
13 70 Michael LAVERTY GBR Paul Bird Motorsport PBM +1’09.743
14 9 Danilo PETRUCCI ITA Came IodaRacing Project Ioda-Suter +1’17.813
15 5 Colin EDWARDS USA NGM Mobile Forward Racing FTR Kawasaki +1’18.177
16 67 Bryan STARING AUS GO&FUN Honda Gresini FTR Honda +1’18.928
17 71 Claudio CORTI ITA NGM Mobile Forward Racing FTR Kawasaki +1’19.307
18 7 Hiroshi AOYAMA JPN Avintia Blusens FTR +1’19.457
DNF 6 Stefan BRADL GER LCR Honda MotoGP Honda 24 Laps
DNF 29 Andrea IANNONE ITA Energy T.I. Pramac Racing Ducati 24 Laps
DNF 52 Lukas PESEK CZE Came IodaRacing Project Ioda-Suter 24 Laps
DNF 14 Randy DE PUNIET FRA Power Electronics Aspar ART 25 Laps
DNF 68 Yonny HERNANDEZ COL Paul Bird Motorsport ART 25 Laps