After stamping his authority in Austin, Jerez and Le Mans, Marquez is speeding towards his seventh world title. Can anyone stop him?
Whether Marc Marquez is ‘destroying the sport’ or not, there’s absolutely no doubt that he’s annihilating the rest of the field at the moment. After the Argentina debacle, Marquez is a changed man, or in other words, he’s become so much quicker than everybody else on the grid that he doesn’t get any chance to rub leathers with others and get in to trouble.
Marquez’ first victory of the season came in Austin this year. And while it may sound like a cliché now, he’s still the king of the COTA (Circuit of the Americas). The reigning world champion continued his domination on the American soil as he cruised to his sixth successive win in Austin. Not to mention, he secured pole for the race as well. However, before the race, he was robbed off the pole position and was handed a three-place penalty, owing to an incident that occurred between him and Vinales during qualifying. But it wasn’t much of a deterrent to the Repsol Honda rider. As soon as the flag dropped, Marquez made a lightning start and checked out in no time. Behind Marquez, Maverick Vinales of Movistar Yamaha finished second, while Andrea Iannone of Suzuki took his first podium of the year in third. However, the rider of the Americas GP this year was Dani Pedrosa, who finished the race in seventh, despite having a wrist surgery after his crash in Argentina.
The next round was at Jerez in Spain, and like everyone will tell you, this is where the real battle begins. Now Jerez is traditionally a track where Marquez doesn’t have a stellar record, as he has in Austin or Sachsenring. Despite all the odds though, Marquez dominated the field yet again and won at his home turf. It was similar to Austin, with Marquez leaving the rest of the field to fight among themselves to take second and third places. That said, it wasn’t that easy here, since Jorge Lorenzo led the race for most part and kept Marquez at bay for as long as he could.
However, with Marquez and his RCV213V in top form, Lorenzo couldn’t hold him from taking the lead and eventually the race win. What Lorenzo did instead was get into a tussle with Pedrosa and teammate Andrea Dovizioso to take the second spot. And it didn’t end quite well for all three riders.
With 7 laps to go in the Spanish grand prix, the battle between Lorenzo and Dovizioso was getting intense, with Pedrosa right behind the Ducati duo. Soon Dovizioso made an overzealous move on his teammate, and while he did overtake Lorenzo, he ran wide. This, in turn, forced Lorenzo to go off the racing line. Next, Lorenzo quickly cut back to make the apex and failed to notice Pedrosa, who was already there! What happened next, as a result, was a carnage of sorts. Pedrosa crashed into Lorenzo, which led to Lorenzo’s bike torpedoing into Dovizioso. All three crashed! The crash didn’t have any effect on Marquez, but it handed Zarco and Iannone podium finishes in Jerez.
In Le Mans, Marquez yet again demolished the competition and stamped authority by making it three wins a row. Not only that, the victory at the French grand prix must have tasted even sweeter because two of the top championship contenders – Zarco and Dovizioso – crashed and scored zero points in Le Mans. Simply put, Marquez leads the championship by 36 points now.
Marquez’ lead shouldn’t be of much concern to his rivals, since there are 14 more races to go and anything can happen. What everyone is worried about, however, is Marquez’s speed. You see, Jerez and Le Mans aren’t exactly the tracks that Marquez loves, but he was still victorious in both races. To quote his own words, ‘We must be happy because I am living in a sweet moment between my bike and me, and this is the most important thing.’ You can only imagine the result, if this rhythm continues at tracks that Marquez loves.
The other thing is that Marquez isn’t facing any real competition from Dovizioso, Zarco or the factory Yamahas – Rossi and Vinales say that they’re still suffering from the electronics setup – at the moment. And that begs the following question – can anyone challenge Marquez this year? Well, so far, it’s turned out to be a one man show. And if anyone wants to stop Marquez from winning his seventh title this year, they really have to up their game. Or, they should start praying harder, hoping that Marquez makes silly mistakes in the coming rounds.
Write your Comment