Jorge Lorenzo strikes 4 in a row with strong Catalan Grand Prix Victory

Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo continued his strong form with a 4th straight win of the year in Round 7 of the MotoGP World Championship at homeland Catalunya, Spain with team mate Valentino Rossi finishing 2nd after starting 7th. Honda rider Dani Pedrosa took his first podium after returning from an arm pump surgery while reigning double world champion Marquez crashed out on Lap 3.

At the start Lorenzo gunned for the lead from 3rd on the grid beating pole sitter Aleix Espargaro and Marc Marquez and set his domination right away while championship leader Valentino Rossi made few places from 7th as Cal Crutchlow got hit by Aleix Espargaro and retired.

World Champion Marc Marquez after a dismal last 2 rounds (crash in Italy and an offtrack excursion in France) was determined not to let away Lorenzo and kept up with the tail of the Yamaha rider but on lap 3 the young rider made a mistake in braking trying to push too much  and nearly missed clipping Lorenzo and hit the gravel retiring for the second race in succession.

This meant Lorenzo had a clear 1.5 seconds lead over Dovizioso on the Ducati with Rossi close behind. Siting Marquez´s crash Rossi immediately overtook Dovizioso and slotted behind his team mate 1.9 secs behind.

From then on the gap remained constant as Rossi couldn´t make any inroads into his team mate´s lead as both Yamaha riders clocked almost similar lap times. 

Pol Espargaro (Tech3 Yamaha), Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) crashed few laps later during separate incidents while pole sitter Aliex Espagaro crashed 5 laps before the chequered flag.  

In the last 8 laps of the race, 7 times MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi, running second, slightly improved his pace over his team mate Lorenzo and started to cut down few hundreds of a second every lap but Lorenzo pushed hard to maintain the gap without losing his calm. 

Rossi came almost 0.8secs closer on the last lap but Lorenzo was unstoppable in taking his fourth consecutive victory and in his home track. 

Rossi still leads the world championship by just 1 point over his surging team mate Lorenzo while Marquez's title hopes are down by 69 points. 


 
MotoGP Catalunya Grand Prix 2015 – Race Results