TT Assen

Round 8 - Saturday, June 28th 2014

Netherlands - Race Report

Weather conditions

wet/dry

19°C
Air temp

25°C
Track temp

69%
Humidity

Marquez makes it a perfect eight after dramatic Dutch TT

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has taken his eighth win from eight races, continuing his flawless run in 2014, and has become the youngest rider to win eight successive premier class races (21 years 131 days), taking the record from Mike Hailwood (24 years and 71 days) who won the eighth of a 12-race winning sequence in 1964. Marc’s teammate, Dani Pedrosa, had a fantastic battle with Aleix Espargaro and took third place on the podium, alongside Andrea Dovizioso.

In true Assen style, the weather played a key part in today’s twenty-six lap race. As the riders left their garages for the starting grid, rain arrived and forced a delay to proceedings. Whilst some riders remained on the grid, both Marc and Dani returned to the garage to evaluate the best course of action and to decide if they should start on slicks or wet tyres. Both selected wet tyres and the race got underway at 14h20 local time.

Marc held his position from the start, and enjoyed an early battle with Dovizioso on the first lap, passing each other five times before passing him for the lead. Dani slipped down to fourth behind Aleix Espargargo as a fantastic battle began to develop. The track began to dry quickly with a dry line emerging and on lap six most of the front runners chose to enter the pits to swap bikes for the dry set-up on slicks. They filtered back on track and began to rediscover their rhythm but Marc made a small mistake on lap eight and Dovizioso passed him to take the lead. Dani was tucked in behind Espargaro and on lap nine they passed each other a few times but Dani wasn’t able to complete the pass. On lap twelve rain flags were shown again and the bikes with wet set-up were prepared in the pit lane. Thankfully the weather held off and didn’t worsen, enabling the Repsol Honda riders to continue their chase.

Dani briefly passed Espargaro on lap sixteen but was again passed back and Marc passed Dovizioso on the final turn and began to push, setting a fastest race lap (lap nineteen). Meanwhile Dani managed to pass Espargaro on lap eighteen and built himself a comfortable gap to take the final spot on the podium – his 90th podium in MotoGP.

Marc has now won in every class at Assen – MotoGP (2014), Moto 2 (2012 and 2011) and 125cc (2010) – and he celebrates this eighth win in a row with his brother, Alex, who also won on his Honda in the Moto3 class earlier today. He now has a perfect 200 points from 200 and leads the Championship by 72 points over Rossi. Dani is in third place but equal on points with Rossi (128).

Team Quotes

1st - Championship Standing: 1st - 200 points

"It was a tough day because this was a race where I could have lost many points, but we were still able to extend our lead in the Championship so I'm very pleased with how it has gone and how we dealt with the flag-to-flag. It was our first experience of a race like this, with both wet and dry conditions, and we even had a little scare after the bike change. We are very happy with this victory and to have got a very important 25 points on a weekend we had circled on the calendar”

3rd - Championship Standing: 3rd - 128 points

"It was a very difficult race and was even a bit chaotic at first, when it came to having to decide which tyres to put on the bike. I kept a cool head and chose the option of wets, because at first the track was a little damp. I should have pushed more in the opening laps - but I chose not to incase it rained again - as the track began to dry out. The rain didn’t come and I had a good fight with Aleix for the podium in the dry. I am happy to have taken the rostrum finish, because you never know how races like today’s might go, but this one went well for us and we are now focusing on doing a good job in Germany”

race results

TT Assen - Round 8

Pos.	Rider	Num.	Nation	Points	Team	Constructor	Time/Gap
1	Marc Marquez	93	ESP	25	Repsol Honda Team	HONDA	43'29.954
2	Andrea Dovizioso	4	ITA	20	Ducati Team	DUCATI	+6.714
3	Dani Pedrosa	26	ESP	16	Repsol Honda Team	HONDA	+10.791
4	Aleix Espargaro	41	ESP	13	NGM Mobile Forward Racing	YAMAHA	+19.199
5	Valentino Rossi	46	ITA	11	Yamaha Factory	YAMAHA	+25.813
6	Andrea Iannone	29	ITA	10	Pramac Racing	DUCATI	+29.003
7	Alvaro Bautista	19	ESP	9	Go & Fun Honda Gresini	HONDA	+30.882
8	Bradley Smith	38	GBR	8	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	YAMAHA	+30.985
9	Cal Crutchlow	35	GBR	7	Ducati Team	DUCATI	+44.031
10	Stefan Bradl	6	GER	6	LCR Honda MotoGP	HONDA	+48.662
11	Broc Parkes	23	AUS	5	Paul Bird Motorsport	PBM	+51.863
12	Scott Redding	45	GBR	4	Go & Fun Honda Gresini	HONDA	+1'00.329
13	Jorge Lorenzo	99	ESP	3	Yamaha Factory Racing	YAMAHA	+1'04.641
14	Karel Abraham	17	CZE	2	Cardion AB Motoracing	HONDA	+1'05.980
15	Danilo Petrucci	9	ITA	1	IodaRacing Project	IODA-SUTER	+1'17.611
16	Hiroshi Aoyama	7	JPN		Drive M7 Aspar	HONDA	+1'19.753
17	Nicky Hayden	69	USA		Drive M7 Aspar	HONDA	+1'27.630
18	Hector Barbera	8	ESP		Avintia Racing MotoGP	FTR-KAWASAKI	+1'28.142
19	Yonny Hernandez	68	COL		Pramac Racing	DUCATI	1 lap
20	Mike Di Meglio	63	FRA		Avintia Racing MotoGP	FTR-KAWASAKI	1 lap
21	Michael Laverty	70	GBR		Paul Bird Motorsport	ART & PBM	1 lap
22	Colin Edwards	5	USA		NGM Mobile Forward Racing	YAMAHA	3 laps
23	Pol Espargaro	44	ESP		Monster Yamaha Tech 3	YAMAHA	DNF

Copyright Free Images - For Editorial use only

Circuit Information

View circuit page at www.repsolhondateam.com

Length	4.542 m / 2.822 miles
Width	14m
Left corners	6
Right corners	12
Longest straight	487 m / 0.303 miles
Constructed	1955
Modified	2012

TT Circuit Assen
De Haar 9
9405 TE Assen
The Netherlands

www.ttcircuit.com

Pole Position	1m 33.713s (174.481km/h) Casey Stoner, Honda, 2012
Race Lap	1m 34.548s (172.940km/h) Dani Pedrosa, Honda, 2012
Race Time	41m 18.629s (171.518km/h) Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha, 2010)
2013 Race Winner	Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2014 Race Winner	Marc Marquez (Honda)