Alex Marquez snapped older brother Marc Marquez’s 15-race winning streak by taking victory in the Grand Prix of Catalunya on Sunday, the Gresini Ducati rider earning his second MotoGP victory and denying his sibling a chance to win the world championship at next weekend’s San Marino Grand Prix.
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From pole position, Alex Marquez reclaimed the lead from his brother on lap four of the 24-lap race and finally pulled away in a tense race in the final two laps, winning by 1.740secs to add victory to his maiden success at the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez in April.
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KTM rider Enea Bastianini, who made way for Marc Marquez at the factory Ducati team at the end of last season, took his first podium of the season in third, 5.562secs behind Alex Marquez.
Alex Marquez threw away victory in Saturday’s 12-lap sprint race after he crashed out with a 1.5sec lead with three laps to go, but didn’t buckle when his sibling drew to within two-tenths of a second with five laps left, the brothers the class of the field in a tyre-preserving race on a Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya track that nudged 40 degrees and produced a tactical, strategic battle.
“It feels so good,” Alex Marquez said.
“It’s true that I have in the head a little bit the race from yesterday, but when I was there on the bike I say ‘this one needs to be with me’, so I just need to push all the race and managing a lot the tyres. With six, seven [laps] to the end was the time to see if I had something … I was able to make good lap times in that moment.”
The Marquez siblings, Bastianini and KTM rider Pedro Acosta cleared away from the rest of the field after the opening six laps, but Acosta – the only rider to chance his arm with the soft-compound Michelin tyre in the 24-rider field – began to drop back after Bastianini claimed third on lap 11.
Alex Marquez led his brother by no more than half a second until lap 20, Marc Marquez struggling to stop his bike at Turn 10 and Alex Marquez escaping to a lead of over seven-tenths of a second and cruising to victory from there.
With the victory, Marc Marquez’s championship lead sits at 182 points with seven rounds remaining, meaning the earliest he can wrap up the title is the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi from September 26-28.
Australia’s Jack Miller fought back from being in last place at the first corner to score points in 14th for Pramac Yamaha, the 30-year-old finishing 24.351secs behind Alex Marquez at the chequered flag.
From 14th on the grid, Miller had to take avoiding action as the pack thundered into the first corner and was shuffled to the back of the pack, but made his way back into the points-paying positions with four laps to go, and then overtook Ducati’s Fermin Aldeguer on the penultimate lap to advance to 14th and score two world championship points.
Round 16 of the 22-round MotoGP season will take place at Misano in Italy from September 12-14.
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