Rossi Secures Superb Victory At Soaking Silverstone
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Valentino Rossi gave a stunning performance at the British Grand Prix, taking a brilliant victory in challenging conditions. Teammate Jorge Lorenzo also rode a brave race and secured fourth place.Movistar Yamaha MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi mastered the MotoGP field under difficult conditions, taking his first victory at Silverstone to continue his streak of consecutive podiums finishes this season, making it twelve. Jorge Lorenzo encountered some difficulties but fought bravely at the British Grand Prix to claim a solid fourth place.
Tension built as rain picked up just as the race was about to start. The race was declared dry, so all riders had to make the agonising choice whether they would start from pit lane on a wet setting or on slicks from the grid. However, after the warm up lap all riders decided to come into pit lane to swop bikes, making race direction decide to delay the start and reduce the race to 20 laps.
Twenty-five minutes later the MotoGP field lined up on the grid for a second attempt, this time prepared for a wet race. Rossi was the fastest man in similar conditions in the morning warm up and quickly fought his way up the order from his fourth place grid position. The Doctor moved into third position to hunt down Marc Marquez, passing him with a brilliant move at the start of the second lap.
The nine-time World Champion then set his sights on his teammate and increased his pace. He made the audience cheer when he took over the lead, posting a 2’21.807, the fastest lap of the race thus far. Under pressure from Marquez, he continued to pick up the pace and used his experience to keep his rival at bay until the Spaniard crashed out with eight laps to go, but the race wasn’t won yet.
Rossi kept pushing on as Danilo Petrucci started closing in, towing Andrea Dovizioso. Aware of the threat the Doctor managed a gap of more than 1.5s perfectly. With two laps remaining Rossi raised the bar and expanded his margin by nearly one and a half second to take a faultless victory by 3.010s.
Teammate Lorenzo also had a strong start from second on the grid. He shot off the line to take the holeshot into first turn and kept the lead when he crossed the line for the first time. He was passed by Rossi and Marquez on the second lap, moving him down to third. Lorenzo did well to remain seated on his bike when he bashed fairings with Pol Espagrarò two laps later, but lost valuable time and was unable to make up the gap that was created between him and the top two.
The Majorcan continued to have a challenging outing as his visor fogged up. Continuing the race with impaired vision, he got involved in a scrap with Petrucci, Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa for third place. Lorenzo fell back to sixth, but kept his fighting spirit and with seven laps left he got a second wind. With Marquez crashed out he found himself back in fifth place and fought his way back to fourth position, which he held over the line, 5.726 s off his teammate.
Rossi's first place earns him 25 points, while Lorenzo's fourth fourth place of the year adds 13 points to his score. These results put the Doctor back in the lead of the championship with 236 points, 12 points ahead of Lorenzo in second place with a 224 points total.
