2015 Japanese MotoGP at Twin Ring Motegi: Dani Wins at Honda’s backyard

The 2015 MotoGP is nearing its end, and the championship battle is far from over. Only 14 points separate Rossi from Lorenzo, with defending champ Marc Marquez a few points further back.

Sunday saw a damp circuit as rain fell for most of the morning. At the start, it was the rain master, Valentino Rossi, starting behind poleman Jorge Lorenzo, who got the jump into turn 1. But the Spaniard had too much at stake to just let his teammate take the lead without fighting back. Lorenzo recovered and took the position over Rossi by turn 4. Jorge made the move stick, and once in front, the two-time champ kept extending the gap, lap after lap. Lorenzo was lapping about 0.5 seconds faster than Rossi in the sister Yamaha and from all indications, he was likely to come away with the win.

The Repsol Honda riders Marc Marquez and eventual winner Dani Pedrosa found it difficult to get adequate grip from their Bridgestones. This lack of traction had both riders fall back in the standings as both Yamahas pulled away. The factory Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso kept pace and was shadowing Valentino Rossi all throughout, but catching someone and passing someone are two different things. Vale managed to keep Andrea at bay.

Out in front, Lorenzo was relentless, running away with the race. It seemed that Rossi was preoccupied with defending his position, and an attack on Lorenzo never materialized. In the early stages, Rossi was just in damage limitation mode trying to nurse his Yamaha to score much needed points.

A few laps later, on lap 11 to be exact, Dani Pedrosa came to grips with his tire situation, and quietly climbed up the standings. He had the pace, and as the race reached its halfway mark, riders using intermediate tires were finding it difficult to cope with the drying track. There were visible clumps of rubber coming off, especially from the front tires.

This made for an interesting yet difficult race. Both Yamahas were visibly struggling, with Rossi trying to hold off the Repsol Honda of Pedrosa, but, despite all his efforts, Vale was a sitting duck. The Honda was fast, and more importantly, had the traction to mount the challenge. On lap 15, Pedrosa passed Rossi, who didn’t put up much of a fight. A few laps later, it was Lorenzo’s turn to be passed by Dani Pedrosa. The Honda was flying, and everyone saw it, especially the Honda bigwigs in attendance at their home track.

Lorenzo, who was running at such a fast pace at the start of the race, failed to nurse his tires as the track dried up, and with only about 4 laps to go, Lorenzo had no grip—he was sliding around. This made for an easy move by Rossi to claim second place, when Lorenzo, who lacked traction, went wide at turn 3.

From a position to cut the points lead of Rossi down to nine points during the early part of the race, Jorge was now 18 points in the hole as they crossed the finish line.

Pedrosa took the checkered flag and with it his 50th win of his career (his 27th in the premier class), with Valentino Rossi claiming 2^nd. A visibly deflated Lorenzo took 3rd. Marc Marquez, who was nursing a broken finger, took 4th.

This was Dani Pedrosa’s first win since the Czech GP back in 2014. It may have taken a long time before Dani could stand once again on the top step of the podium, but based on the expression on his face, it was worth the wait!

Valentino Rossi now leads the championship standings with an 18-point buffer to Jorge Lorenzo, and, with three races to go, Vale now only needs to finish ahead of Jorge once, and, in the other 2 races, keep his team-mate within spitting distance to win it all. Lorenzo for his part has to win a race and hope for a Rossi meltdown to win his 3rd title.

Philip Island is next on the calendar, but it will be the heat and humidity of Sepang that could possibly determine the 2015 MotoGP World Champion.