Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa both had strong showings at the exciting Italian GP, where they finished the race a fraction of a second away from victory and a podium finish, respectively, at Mugello.

After starting from the second row, Marc completed the first lap in fourth position and moved to third on lap three, managing to keep the gap from Lorenzo and Rossi to less than a second. After Rossi retired from the race on lap eight, Marquez steadily made up ground on Lorenzo, with whom he engaged in a spectacular duel for victory on the final lap. Despite exiting the last corner with the lead, Marc lost the final rush to the line by a mere 19 thousandths of a second.

Dani celebrated his 250th GP start with a very strong performance. Seventh at the end of the first lap, he was able to put in a series of good laps and match the pace of the leading riders, recovering positions to arrive at a fight for third position with Andrea Iannone. Dani set his best time, just 0.047 seconds off the race’s fastest lap, on his final lap, and finally settled for fourth, only 168 thousandths of a second behind the Italian.

The next GP is scheduled to take place June 3-5 in Barcelona.


Marc Marquez - 2nd

“Today we made a good race, we managed to get very close, and finally we made the podium which is always positive, but even with the slipstream I wasn’t able to overtake Jorge. We struggled throughout the weekend with acceleration and top speed. I tried to give my all and I did the best race I could do today, I really tried everything. I took several risks in an attempt to win, but on the home straight Jorge slipstreamed me. Now we have to keep working on acceleration because we’re still lacking a little in that regard. Honda is working hard back in Japan, as we do at the tracks and we’ll try to take a step forward ahead of the next race.”

Dani Pedrosa - 4th

“It was a better race than the last few we’ve had. The start was demanding, and with a full tank of fuel I lost some ground. However, my pace wasn’t bad and I was able to make back several positions while also taking advantage of mistakes by other riders. I managed to stick with Iannone and increase my pace to try to fight for third position, even if he was a little faster. I followed him, but it was difficult to overtake because he was very fast on the straight and it was hard to get even with him. We learned a lot about our bike in this race, so we’ll try to work on it to take a step forward in the future.”







1   - LORENZO Jorge 99 SPA 25 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 41'36.535
2   - MARQUEZ Marc 93 SPA 20 Repsol Honda Team Honda 0.019
3   - IANNONE Andrea 29 ITA 16 Ducati Team Ducati 4.742
4   - PEDROSA Dani 26 SPA 13 Repsol Honda Team Honda 4.910
5   - DOVIZIOSO Andrea 4 ITA 11 Ducati Team Ducati 6.256
6   - VINALES Maverick 25 SPA 10 Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 8.670
7   - SMITH Bradley 38 GBR 9 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 13.340
8   - PETRUCCI Danilo 9 ITA 8 Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 14.598
9   - ESPARGARO Aleix 41 SPA 7 Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 18.643
10 - PIRRO Michele 51 ITA 6 Ducati Team Ducati 22.298
11 - CRUTCHLOW Cal 35 GBR 5 LCR Honda Honda 27.936
12 - BARBERA Hector 8 SPA 4 Avintia Racing Ducati 35.712
13 - LAVERTY Eugene 50 IRE 3 Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 38.032
14 - BRADL Stefan 6 GER 2 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 40.094
15 - ESPARGARO Pol 44 SPA 1 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 59.811
16 - HERNANDEZ Yonny 68 COL 0 Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 1'04.397
17 - ROSSI Valentino 46 ITA 0 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 15 laps
18 - REDDING Scott 45 GBR 0 Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 15 laps
19 - MILLER Jack 43 AUS 0 Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda DNF 1st lap
20 - BAUTISTA Alvaro 19 SPA 0 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia DNF 1st lap
21 - BAZ Loris 76 FRA 0 Avintia Racing Ducati DNF 1st lap