MotoGP Monday – France serves up a flamboyant feast of MotoGP Racing
The second half of the race is when things started to heat up
Mason Meyer
With over 100 000 fans bearing down on the Le Mans race track in France, the MotoGP riders lined up on the grid to commence battle.
With the Movistar Yamaha riders Vinales and Rossi and local French rider Zarco (Yamaha Tec3) qualifying 1st,2nd and 3rd respectively, Yamaha definitely looked the stronger of all the teams this weekend.
Local boy Zarco got the jump on the other 2 as the lights went out and to the fans delight raced into the lead at his home Grand Prix. The first half of the race was pretty uneventful at the front with the top 3 Yamaha riders being joined by Marquez (Repsol Honda).
The 4 set about knocking off the laps and waiting for Zaro’s softer compound tyre to fade, however the French rider impressed and managed to hold off Vinalez for quite some time, until Vinales finally slipped up the inside and demoted Zarco to 2nd place and into the crosshairs of Rossi.
The second half of the race is when things started to heat up. Marquez was pushing hard to catch the front 3 and give himself a chance to fight for a podium position, however he ended up crashing out as a result of his efforts.
Rossi eventually made his move and got past Zarco, demoting the Frenchman to 3rd. The hunt was then on for ‘The Doctor’ to catch Vinales if he could, and yes, he could, with only a few laps to go he passed Vinales and looked to pull away. With one lap to go and a slim lead over Vinales, the money would have been on Rossi to hold the lead.
Rossi was doing his best to defend and stay ahead of a charging Vinales, however, on the last lap, a mistake from Rossi let Vinales back through and with only a handful of corners left The Doctor had to push hard to give himself a chance to win the race.
He ended up sliding out of the race with a couple of corners to go and had to watch his teammate disappear across the finish line to take the race win. Zarco got promoted to 2nd thanks to Rossi’s crash and Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) rounded out the podium after starting from 13th on the grid. Vinales now takes over the championship lead.
South African Tracker:
Daryn Binder crashed out of 2nd place on the last lap in Moto3.
Brad Binder (Moto2) is still recovering from injury.
