Valentino Rossi took victory in a wet race at Silverstone and is now back at the top of the championship standings, 12 points ahead of Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo.
A great day for Danilo Petrucci who finished 2nd and took to the MotoGP podium for the first time.
Andrea Dovizioso claimed the final spot on the podium.
There were many things we expected to see on Sunday at Brno. Rain was one of them. Order restored in Moto3 was another. But most of all, we expected to see a scintillating MotoGP race going down to the wire.
We saw none of those things, yet the Czech Grand Prix turned out to be one of the most intriguing races of the season. The momentum shifted in Moto3 and MotoGP, and swung even further in Moto2. And apart from a few drops shortly after Moto3 finished, the rain stayed away all day.
Free practice had promised a thrilling MotoGP race, with little to choose between the pace of the top three riders in the championship. Expectations were both raised and dispelled after qualifying, with Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Márquez and Valentino Rossi locking out the front row.
Lorenzo on pole was no surprise, nor really was Márquez on the front row. Rossi, though, was an eye-opener, and on paper, a mouth-watering prospect.
Jorge Lorenzo celebrates his 5th victory of the season.
Marc Marquez looked threatening for a while, but ultimately had no answer to Jorge Lorenzo’s pace.
Valentino Rossi finished a distant but comfortable 3rd place.
This is part two of our Indy round up, covering the excellent Moto2 race, and the intriguing Moto3 race. If you want to read about MotoGP, see part one.
The Moto2 race turned out to be a barnstormer, a welcome return for the class. Once, Moto2 was the best race of the weekend, but in the past couple of years, it has become processional, and turned into dead air between the visceral thrills of Moto3 and the tripwire tension of MotoGP.
At Indy, Johann Zarco, Alex Rins, Franco Morbidelli, Dominique Aegerter, and Tito Rabat battled all race long for supremacy. They were joined at the start of the race by a brace of Malaysians, Hafizh Syahrin running at the front while Azlan Shah fought a close battle behind. Sam Lowes held on in the first half of the race, but as he started to catch the leaders in the last few laps, he ended up crashing out.
In the end, it was Alex Rins who took victory, just rewards for the man who had been the best of the field all weekend. It was Rins’ first victory in Moto2, and confirmation of his status as an exceptional young talent.
Whether this is the last time MotoGP visits Indianapolis or not – the lack of an announcement on Sunday night suggests that this was the last time – the 2015 edition will certainly go down in history as memorable.
Race day saw the biggest crowd since 2009 head to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, though in a facility this vast, anything less than a quarter of a million fans is going to look empty, and all 67,000 were treated to some genuine racing spectacle.
An upside down Moto3 race, where those bold enough to gamble on slicks were duly rewarded; an old-fashioned Moto2 dogfight, where a group of evenly matched riders brawled from start to finish; and a pair of exceptionally tense duels in MotoGP, with championship positions raising the stakes even further.
The race of the day? Hard to say. All three had their own appeal. Rain and a drying track made Moto3 a weird contest, with massive gaps between the leaders, and yet still strangely exciting, because of the potential effects on the championship.
Moto2 harked back to the halcyon days of Márquez, Iannone, and Espargaro, and reminded us of why we used to love the class. And MotoGP was more about tension than straight up excitement, brains kept busy calculating the ramifications for the championship as the front four swapped positions.
That Marc Márquez ended up winning the MotoGP race should come as no surprise. The Repsol Honda rider extended his winning streak, both at the track and in the USA.
I’ve shot from the grandstands every single year since MotoGP started racing at Indy in 2008. I almost didn’t do so this weekend, but towards the end of the race most riders were too spread out for group photos so I autopiloted back to my favorite vantage point.
Peering through a lens sometimes makes you oblivious to what’s happening right in front of you. I didn’t realize until well after the fact that Andrea Dovizioso had just gotten bumped off line and ended up last barely two corners into the race.
Park ferme is an ideal place to capture portraits of riders in a reasonably good mood.
Valentino Rossi once again recovered from a poor qualifying position to finish on the rostrum.
Jorge Lorenzo lead for most of the race but had to settle for 2nd place behind Marc Marquez.
Marc Marquez can’t stop winning on American soil. He clearly enjoys racing in the USA.
Every once in a while, riders inadvertently do me a big favor by glancing over as I’m taking pictures. Eye contact is always a bonus.
This was a continuation of an idea that I started trying a couple years ago, but I forgot about. I tried to use the track to add a bit of interest to the foreground, while making sure the rider was making an interesting shape. Cal Crutchlow was the only rider to dangle his leg, making him the ideal subject.
This is what happens when riders are asked silly questions during press conferences.