Honda duo Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team RC213V) and Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team RC213V) scored a hugely important one-two at Aragon today, moving Marquez 16 points ahead of his main championship rival with four races remaining in the 2017 MotoGP World Championship.

Reigning World Champion Marquez was his usual genius self, performing some spectacular overtaking manoeuvres around this challenging, undulating circuit. He finally took the lead at three-quarters distance and steadily built his advantage while Pedrosa recovered superbly from a difficult first part of the race to work his way through from sixth to second, less than a second behind his team-mate. This was the pair’s third one-two of the season, after May’s Spanish Grand Prix and last month’s Czech Grand Prix.

The duo’s performance didn’t only move Marquez clear in the riders championship, it also puts Honda 17 points ahead in the constructors championship and Repsol Honda 30 points ahead in the teams championship.

Marquez’s fifth victory of the season was also his 60th across all three classes and makes him Honda’s second most successful premier-class rider, with 34 wins against Mick Doohan’s 54 successes, achieved between 1990 and 1998.

The 24-year-old Spaniard, who has won three of the past four MotoGP crowns, had to work particularly hard for this victory, battling some grip issues and coming through from fourth place at the end of the fifth lap to overtake title-rival Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati), Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) and Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati), who led the first 15 laps of the 23-lap race.

Marquez’s speed through Aragon’s final double-left was astonishing and he used this advantage to get the better of several riders, including Lorenzo on lap 16. However, he could not relax in the last few laps, as a revitalised Pedrosa also got the better of Lorenzo and looked like he might threaten the leader. At the finish the team-mates were 0.879 seconds apart.

Pedrosa, like Marquez, had chosen a medium-compound rear slick, but took some laps before he felt fully comfortable; then he got stuck behind Maverick Vinales (Yamaha) for several laps. Once clear of the second group the 31-year-old made startling forward progress to close on Rossi and Lorenzo and pass them both. This was the former 125cc and 250cc World Champion’s eighth podium of the year and the 152nd of his career, across all three categories.

Team-mates Jack Miller (Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda RC213V) and team-mate Tito Rabat (Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda RC213V) both had good rides to take home World Championship points, Miller in 13th and Rabat in 15th. This was a milestone race for Miller – his 100th GP start – six years after he made his debut in the German Grand Prix, riding a Honda RS125.

Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda RC213V) had high hopes of a very strong result after qualifying fourth. The Briton was in the thick of the battle in the second group until he ran wide and later tumbled out of the race without injury.

The MotoGP paddock leaves Europe for several weeks, heading east for next month’s Japanese, Australian and Malaysian GPs, before returning to Spain for November’s season finale at Valencia.


Marc Marquez 93 - 1st

“I’m very, very happy with this victory because it was a tough race. Yesterday I wasn’t feeling totally comfortable with the bike, and today I was struggling again except in the warm-up; I don’t really know why. Anyway, racing at one of my favourite tracks, close to my home and in front of my fans, gave me extra motivation. I pushed hard and in some corners I just clicked the off-button in my head, even if I crashed twice yesterday. I saw that Viñales and Dovi were struggling a bit and knew it was the moment to push, so I did. There were a few scary moments, once when I was trying to overtake Valentino; he was tighter in that corner than I was expecting, and to avoid a clash I released the brakes, only to realize that Lorenzo was right there! So I went off the track, and at that moment I cooled down a bit, even if I continued to try and close the gap. Once I passed Lorenzo, I had to keep going as I saw that Dani was coming very fast. Anyway, that’s the Marquez style! Of course it’s important to think of the championship, but the situation now requires that we give it everything. So we’ll try to continue with the same motivation and mentality race by race, giving our 100 per cent.”

Dani Pedrosa 26

“Maybe if I could have overtaken Maverick a little bit earlier I would have had a better chance to fight for the win, but well, I’m still very happy with my race today! The goal was try and fight for the podium or the win, and we achieved that. So yes, I have some small regrets, but at the same time I couldn’t have done any better in the beginning as I was on the medium rear like Maverick and wasn’t able to pass him for a while. I also had to manage the tyre wear in order to be fast at the end, which I was. I wasn’t sure why we suddenly had some gap to recover to the front, as the others had more or less the same pace. Anyway, when I finally passed him, the gap was there, so I started pushing hard, made some good passes and a good recovery, and had a very strong race. I put a lot of passion into it, and this is good for me and the team.”

Jack Miller 43

“While I am reasonably happy with the way things went today this wasn’t the race I expected even though I came home with some points. I used the hard tyre and expected a little bit more from it but it didn’t work out that way. Overall a positive weekend and I’m feeling really comfortable with the bike, especially the front. We just missed some drive grip on the rear which was down to not making the hard compound work early enough.”

Tito Rabat 53

“I am always looking for a better result so 15th is not where I wanted to be but it was a positive day because I did a very good job in the race after starting a long way back. It is good for my confidence to grab some points in this race and now it's time to focus on the next race in Japan.”

Cal Crutchlow 35

“I didn’t have a great feeling with the front brake lever and I couldn’t adjust it because of my finger injury. The brake got really hot into the last corner because I was slipstreaming Dani and Maverick. Then I made a mistake. The brake lever was too far away, so I had to grab the lever, locked the tyre and ran off the track. I recovered not so bad and it was better for me riding alone. When I passed Jonas Folger I ended up having to go very tight and I lost the front – it was always a risk in right-handers with the harder front tyre. It was a disappointing end to a weekend when we had been fairly competitive.”