the podium finishers
Honda’s Dani Pedrosa dominated the 2017 Spanish GP which was the 3000th Individual Motorcycle Grand Prix in history.
Pedrosa topped the time-sheets in three out of the four practice sessions, took pole position and won the race which capped off his perfect weekend. Following him in second place was his Honda teammate Marc Marquez, who took a gamble on starting on hard tyres at the front and the back but luckily for the young Spaniard it paid off handsomely. 5 time World Champion Jorge Lorenzo made his return to the podium places after a fantastic ride aboard his Desmosedici GP17 took him to 3rd place in Jerez.
After a poor start to the new season with his new team Ducati, Lorenzo is back to where he belongs and he is back for good.
fiery zarco does what he does best : Overtake
Tech 3 Yamaha’s new sensation, Johann Zarco had a stunning first half of the race, overtaking everyone in front of him bar the leader, Dani Pedrosa and in this way he entertained the thousands of people at the circuit and the millions worldwide watching on the television. Zarco’s fire stopped burning in the second half of the race, when he was overtaken by Marquez and Lorenzo by relative ease. This happened because he had applied a lot of load on his tyres while overtaking everyone in sight and when the tyres started to degrade, Zarco was just a passenger on his own bike. Nevertheless, the 2-time Moto2 World Champion finished 4th and was the top independent rider to finish the race.
the midfield : Yamahas, DUcatis and an aprillia
Jorge Lorenzo’s Ducati teammate Andrea Dovizioso had a fine race, climbing up 9 places from starting a 14th on the grid to finishing at a strong 5th place with both the Ducati riders racking up 27 crucial points for the team in the World Championship.
Both the factory Yamahas of Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi endured a pretty bad race, with the latter having a worse race out of the two, finishing a dismal 10th place aboard a championship material bike. Maverick had a comparatively better race, finishing 6th after starting a strong 4th. Nevertheless, Yamaha’s strong showing in the first two races means that they still lead the Constructors’ World Championship and Rossi still leads the Riders’ World Championship, be it only by 2 points from his teammate.
The reason for such a forgettable weekend for Yamaha is that their bike is poor at managing tyres and also doesn’t perform well in hot conditions. Unfortunately for them, Jerez is all about managing the tyres and racing in hot conditions so a bad result was imminent.
Tech 3 Yamaha’s Jonas Folger finished 7th and he was followed by Aprillia’s Aleix Espargró who finished in the points for the second time this season. Espargró’s efforts mean that Aprillia are now ahead of Suzuki in the Constructors’ World Championship by 1 point, a gap which the Italian team would love to increase at Le Mans in two weeks time.
honda wins two in a row ; gets mojo back
Repsol Honda were struggling in the first two races of the season, with none of their riders on the podium at Qatar and none of them even finishing the race at Argentina but the Japanese team have hit the ground running as they have now won two races in a row in the form of USA and Spain. Luckily for the fans, both the races have been won by two different riders; Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, both of whom are strong fan favorites. Honda has done some major work on their bike after Qatar and since then, good results have been coming for the satellite teams and the factory team. Signs of true pace were seen at Argentina but that weekend the factory team was unlucky and both of their riders crashed out. But, Cal Crutchlow from LCR Honda went on to finish 3rd, which was the start of Honda’s revival. Whatever they have done to the bike has been very very effective and now the Japanese team is only 4 points behind Yamaha in the Constructors’ World Championship.
The battle is getting hotter race after race and now that even Ducati has shown signs of mixing in with the front runners, we may have a classic at Le Mans in 2 weeks time.
Click here to view the complete classification of the race!
Click here to view the complete World Championship Standings!
Who will come out at the top of the Riders’ and the Constructors’ World Championship? Who has the better bike out of Yamaha and Honda? Watch the French Grand Prix at Le Mans on May 21 to find out!
None of the media used in this article belongs to me. Credits to MotoGP.com for the same.
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