Pedrosa takes his 50th GP victory at Motegi

Rossi extends his lead over Lorenzo to 18 points while Dani Pedrosa had a brilliant race to take victory at the Motul Grand Prix of Japan. The Repsol Honda rider came from sixth on the grid to take his 27th MotoGP win at Motegi. Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi crossed the line in second to record his 14th podium of the season as he extended his lead over his teammate Jorge Lorenzo to 18 points in the World Championship standings. The tricky riding conditions at Motegi saw 50,000 fans packed into the grandstands despite the pouring rain. Despite a two-hour delay to the morning’s Warm Up Session, the track remained damp leading all riders to switch to wet tyres. At the start of the race Rossi got the holeshot into turn 1 only for Lorenzo to take him through turns 3 & 4 for the lead. At this point Lorenzo broke away at the front and opened up a 2 second lead by the end of lap 3.



Ducati Team GP15 Andrea Dovizioso was experiencing front tyre issues. At this point Pedrosa had already made his way up into fourth and was by far the fastest man on the track. On lap 11 the Spaniard passed Dovizioso as the Italian ran wide and started to chase down Rossi in second, who had a 2.7s advantage. Lapping 1.5s faster that the two Yamaha’s in front of him, Pedrosa caught Rossi with 9 laps to go and suddenly Lorenzo was struggling as his front tyre started to rip itself to pieces. Rossi went with Pedrosa and they both began to hunt down Lorenzo, who had a 2.7s advantage with the two-time MotoGP world champion appearing to be going backwards at this point. Pedrosa blasted past him on the straight as they completed lap 17 to take the lead, and never looked back as he went on to take a commanding victory and continue his record of winning at least one race in every season he has competed in MotoGP.



Pedrosa’s teammate Marc Marquez (+27.841s) crossed the line in a lonely 4th nursing the broken bone in his left hand ahead of the Dovizioso, who despite his tyre issues, held on for fifth. Scott Redding (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) completed the top ten ahead of Aleix Espargaro (Team Suzuki Ecstar) in 11th, with the second wildcard Takumi Takahashi (Team HRC with Nissin) 12th. Nicky Hayden was the leading Open Class Honda in 13th, with his Irish teammate Eugene Laverty crossing the line in 17th. Rossi (283pts) now has an 18-point lead over Lorenzo (265pts) with just three races remaining, while Marc Marquez remains in third with 197 points.