By Dan Moakes
May 16 2014

Could Jorge Lorenzo recover lost ground in his quest to unseat Marc Márquez in the 2014 FIM MotoGP World Championship, with only six points on the board for the Yamaha man after the first two races? Round three was being held at a new venue for the series.

Argentina has been an on-off host of motorcycle Grands Prix over the years, most frequently appearing on the calendar through the 1980s and 1990s. The circuit in Buenos Aires, named after local racing driver Oscar Gálvez, was last visited by the GP circus in 1999, with Valentino Rossi the only current competitor to have raced there. But the destination in 2014 was the Autódromo Termas de Rio Hondo, which would be new to everyone. Would that count against Honda man Márquez this time, the man who seemed to have had the edge everywhere so far, at circuits where he was making his first return visits as a MotoGP rider.

In qualifying it didn’t look like there was going to be any change, with Márquez joined by his two main rivals on the front row of the grid, but with the 21-year-old faster by 0.8s. Repsol Honda tied up two of the first three places, with Márquez in pole position and Dani Pedrosa placed third. They were split by Lorenzo on the MoviStar Yamaha, his first front row visit for the season, with team-mate Rossi taking sixth. Row two also hosted the leading works Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso, in fifth; and once again the leading runner in the Open category was Aleix Espargaró, in fourth on the Forward Yamaha.

Seventh went to Tech 3 Yamaha rider Bradley Smith, with team-mate Pol Espargaró in P11. The improving Andrea Iannone was eighth on the Pramac Ducati, ahead of the other two factory Hondas: Stefan Bradl (LCR) then Álvaro Bautistá (Gresini). The remaining Open bikes were headed by Nicky Hayden in P12 on the Aspar Honda, from Scott Redding (Gresini Honda), Colin Edwards (Forward Yamaha), Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Honda), Hiroshi Aoyama (Aspar), Yonny Hernández (Pramac Ducati), Broc Parkes (PBM), Michele Pirro, Michael Laverty (PBM), Héctor Barberá and Mike di Meglio (both Avintia), and Danilo Petrucci (Ioda ART). Pirro was appearing for the Ducati Team as substitute for the injured Cal Crutchlow.

There was hot weather on race day, and Lorenzo got away well to take the lead, in front of Pedrosa, who was quickly passed by Iannone. Then it was Rossi, Márquez, Dovizioso, Smith, Bradl, Aleix Espargaró and Hernández. The third corner at Rio Hondo is a right-hander onto a long straight, and that leads to a heavy braking right-hand hairpin at turn four. This corner saw Iannone run wide and lose a few places, whilst a bit further back there was an early exit for Bautistá, who made contact with the rear of another rider’s machine in the braking zone. Álvaro went down, as did Petrucci.

It was no less busy round the rest of the first lap, with Pedrosa through into the lead but then passed on either side by Rossi and Lorenzo, with back-and-forth action also involving the pursuing Márquez, Dovizioso and Iannone. Aleix Espargaró went down in a lowside crash and resumed at the back of the field, but meanwhile Lorenzo had finally emerged as the leader, with Pedrosa somehow shuffled back to sixth behind Dovizioso, Iannone, Rossi and Bradl, and with Márquez in seventh.

Lorenzo put his foot down, so to speak, and started to pull away at the head of the field, whilst second man Dovizioso came under pressure from behind. In short order the man in red was relegated by Iannone; by both Bradl and Rossi at the same time - the German round the outside and the Italian on the inside; and by Márquez, who was already ahead of team-mate Pedrosa. Iannone on the customer Ducati was the next to lose out, his second place going to Rossi as the Yamaha rider passed on the inside for the long, looping right-hander at turn one.

With Lorenzo getting away, Márquez passed Iannone for third on the inside of a right-hander, with Rossi then running wide and letting both men through. Bradl was fifth at this stage, ahead of Pedrosa, Dovizioso and Pol Espargaró; but soon Stefan found a gap on the inside of Valentino for a right-hander, with the Yamaha rider having to go wide as the Honda went through. Meanwhile, Márquez was moving clear of third man Iannone, at the same time as he began to erode the one-second lead of Lorenzo.

Pedrosa had also got past Rossi to take fifth position, joining a three-man race for the final podium place, just on the back of Iannone and Bradl. But all the time Márquez was catching Lorenzo, getting there before too long and following the Yamaha man as the contest behind developed. Iannone and Bradl swapped back and forth before Pedrosa overtook the German rider on the inside at turn four. Soon after he was past the leading Ducati, with Stefan going through as well. By this time Rossi was 0.5s behind this trio, but he remained clear of Dovizioso and the rest.

Pedrosa and Bradl started to leave Iannone behind, at which point Rossi was able to challenge the Pramac rider. His move came as the fast left-hand bend at turn ten led to the braking zone for the tight loop to the right at turn eleven, where Valentino took the inside line. ‘The Doctor’ was soon threatening Bradl’s hold on fourth place, but meanwhile Pedrosa had got clear and was starting to close down the gap of 2.0s or more to the two men ahead.

Rossi and Bradl tussled for supremacy at turns one and two, the latter being a loop back to the left. Valentino had run wide after getting through on the inside at one, but then found the inside line at two to finally get past. Further ahead, with nine laps to go Márquez made his move for the lead at turn four, passing Lorenzo on the inside under braking. Thereafter he upped his pace, finishing the lap with a new fastest time and a lead of 0.7s. With five laps to go the advantage was 2.4s for Marc, with Jorge now having to look out for Pedrosa closing in from behind.

The gap from Lorenzo to Pedrosa had been as high as 2.3s, but when Dani set a new fastest lap this brought the margin down to under 0.5s. With two laps left to run he had caught the Yamaha, and the 28-year-old was able to dive through on the inside at turn eleven. This set the order for the final lap, with Márquez leading home Pedrosa, then Lorenzo, then Rossi. Bradl and Iannone also maintained positions to complete the top six.

Dovizioso had struggled to match the pace of Iannone on the customer bike, and had fallen back where he was soon in the clutches of the Tech 3 Yamaha pair. By that time, Smith had got ahead of class rookie Pol Espargaró, so that the Englishman was the first to start the assault. The opening out right-handers of turns six and seven saw Bradley get past at half-distance, with Pol coming through in the later stages, to set their finishing order as they completed the top nine.

Tenth place had been contested by four riders after Redding dropped back, to be replaced by Aoyama. Hernández initially headed this group, with Abraham pushed back by the Aspar pair of Hayden and Aoyama. In the end, the two former GP champions got the better of Yonny’s Ducati, making it an inter-team Honda battle for the honour of being the leading Open machine home. It came down to the last two corners, with turn eleven kinking back to the left for turn twelve onto the final straight, where Hiroshi overtook Nicky to get the verdict.

Hernández took four points for twelfth, ahead of Abraham, Redding, Aleix Espargaró (up six places through the tail of the field), Barberá, Pirro, Laverty, di Meglio (who’d been passed by each of the four men to finish ahead of him), Edwards and Parkes; and with only the two non-finishers from the first lap incident.

It all added up to a maximum score for Marc Márquez, with three wins from three and a 19-point championship advantage. Jorge Lorenzo finally posted a representative result to move up the leader board - his 75th podium result in the MotoGP class - but with a lot of ground still to recover. For second overall Dani Pedrosa, this result was his 88th podium finish in the premier class, the same number as eight-time 500cc champion Giacomo Agostini. For Spain, this result took their riders beyond the 300 mark in total for premier class rostrum appearances. Half of those have come in the last five or so seasons, and you wouldn’t rule out another Spanish championship winner in 2014.

Standings after three races: Márquez 75; Pedrosa 56; Rossi 41; Dovizioso 34; Iannone 25; Bradl 24; Lorenzo 22; A.Espargaró 21; Smith 20; Hayden and P.Espargaró 18 ·· Open leader: A.Espargaró.
Honda 75; Yamaha 47; Ducati 37; Forward Yamaha 21; ART 2; PBM and Avintia 1.