MotoGP COTA Race: Marc Marquez regains the crown
Marc Marquez takes victory at COTA, as if anyone ever thought he wouldn’t.
Marc Marquez has taken his seventh victory at COTA to add to his tally at the circuit and continue his record of winning every race he has finished at the circuit, his pace and speed were untouchable today completely checking out running consistent mid to low 2:04’s throughout the race, the pace not matched by anyone with this consistency meaning he could add 0.6 a lap to his competitiors.
He started from third on the grid but today’s race was always going to end with P1 for Marc Marquez and he proved this from the very first lap getting the holeshot to the first corner, from here he wouldn’t be attacked or matched, he had Fabio Quartararo within half a second of him throughout the opening laps of the race, Fabio aiming to make a move but not seemingly able to do so. It was a strange race for Fabio as you’d expect him to attack early on especially with how close he was to Marquez however the consistency of the Honda man looked to be too much for the title leader who could only muster up a handful of 2:04 lap times before dropping back allowing Marquez to grow his gap from one second to two to three eventually finishing nearly five seconds ahead. Fabio possibly opting to just take the points and not trade 20 points for zero chasing an extra five.
Alex Rins had a strong opening few laps coming from seventh on the grid to arrive in third, he would engage in a battle with the Ducati’s fighting against Jorge Martin, Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia, he would beat two of the three today eventually coming home in a strong fourth place behind Bagnaia in third place, for Martin and Miller it was a tale of twisted fortunes with Martin getting a fairly controversial long lap penalty despite losing time to Bagnaia after running off the track and Jack Miller’s rear hard tyre choice playing against him and not handing him the speed expected against the front runners who opted for soft tyres.
We also very nearly got to see a boxing match with Joan Mir and Jack Miller once again colliding on track for the third time this year following both Qatar and Misano where paint was swapped between the duo, Miller getting bashed aside by Mir and pulling him aside on the cooldown lap to give the World Champion a talking to, this collision handed the super impressive Enea Bastianini sixth place after overtaking the pair who finished in P7 and P8.
Rounding out the top 10 were ex-teammates Brad Binder and Pol Espargaro with Andrea Dovizioso scoring 3 championship points in P13 and his teammate Valentino Rossi getting a single point in P15.
Full results –
Featured image – HRC
