Dramatic MotoGP race in Argentina

It’s only the second round of the season, but the Argentinian race this Sunday was full of drama.

During one of the practice sessions on Saturday, Scott Redding’s tyres blew up, leaving a horrible bruise on his back and, after the incident, softer tyres were withdrawn from the race allocation.

On the race day, due to changing weather conditions, the Race Direction decided that it was going to be a flag-to-flag race of 20 laps instead of 25 with mandatory swapping of the bikes after the 9th, 10th or 11th lap, which is a very unusual situation for the MotoGP race.

Only 13 riders managed to finish the race and 8 riders crashed out, 5 of them in the tricky Turn 1, including Jorge Lorenzo who gone down only after 5 laps. After the race he explained that he was pushing too much in order to stay in the leading group.

In the beginning of the race, powerful Ducati allowed Ianonne and Dovizioso to perform a stunning double overtake.

Most riders swapped the bikes after the 9th lap, while both Marquez and Rossi stayed for one more lap, which allowed them to save time avoiding the traffic on the pit lane.

Marquez left the pit first followed by Rossi and it happened that Tito Rabat found himself between Rossi and Marquez, which slowed down Rossi by a couple of seconds.

After the swap Marquez clearly felt much more comfortable on the second bike than Rossi, and Marc started opening the gap.

On the last lap an aggressive overtaking by Andrea Iannone took both himself and Andrea Dovizioso out of the race, which allowed Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa to take the second and third places on the podium.

After the race the incident was reviewed by the Race Direction, Iannone was penalised with 1 point.

Despite the disappointment, Dovizioso picked up the bike and pushed it to the finish line taking 3 points.

Marquez won, finishing with an incredible 7 seconds difference.