You would have been forgiven for ruling Jorge Lorenzo out of this year's MotoGP championship fight after the first few races of the year, but since Jerez, the 2010 and 2012 world champion has found another gear, and utterly dominated the last four races, the most recent of course at last weekends Grand Prix of Catalunya, fending off a challenge from his team mate Valentino Rossi.
Lorenzo jumped the top two at the start, the two Suzuki's of Maverik Vinales and Aleix Espargaro, who's lack of seamless shift gearboxes really did for them at the start, dropping them to the lower reaches of the top ten. Rossi had started much lower down the order, at the lower end of the top ten but by lap four was right behind his team-mate. Lorenzo though was just to quick, and fought of the challenge from Rossi, taking his fourth win in succession.
Marc Marquez's miserable season continued. After winning the first ten races in succession last year, Marquez has only managed a fifth, a win, a second and a fourth so far this year, crashing out of three of this seasons races and that trend continued in Catalunya. After going on in hot on Lorenzo, he crashed into the gravel, got going again, and retired the bike and is now 71 points behind Rossi in the standings and 70 behind Lorenzo. He is going to have to do something special to defend his title.
It was however a good race for Dani Pedrossa, who claimed his first podium since coming back from arm pump surgery, and he looked very happy to achieve that. Don't discount the underdog!
It wasn't a great race really for Suzuki. After taking a 1-2 in qualifying, they dropped way back at the start thanks to the lack of seamless shift gearboxes. Aleix Espargaro fought back to 4th but crashed out just a few laps from the end, and Maverik Vinales managed to finish in 6th place. You can forgive Suzuki for being disappointed after that race.
Finally, it was a quiet race for Ducati. Andrea Iannone managed to finish in a solid 4th place, but Andrea Dovizioso crashed out after just 19 laps, a disappointing end to his weekend and his first DNF of the season. Hopefully things will be better at Assen, where Dovi claimed 2nd last year in a damp race.
Four wins in a row has brought Lorenzo to within one point of team-mate Rossi in the championship standings, and it was the sixth win out of seven races for Yamaha. Can Marquez fight back? Can Rossi turn the tables in Assen? Will it be a private battle between the Yamaha boy's for the rest of the year? Lets wait and see. Until next
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