MotoGP 2018: Marquez wins at Le Mans as Dovizioso & Zarco crash

Marc Marquez wins third race in a row to lead championship by 36 points. Danilo Petrucci and Valentino Rossi complete the podium for the French Grand Prix. 

Another grand prix, another Marc Marquez win. The 2018 MotoGP is turning out to be a one-man show as Marquez took his third consecutive win at Le Mans. And the victory at the French Grand Prix was even sweeter for the reigning world champion as two of the top championship contenders – Johann Zarco and Andrea Dovizioso – crashed and scored zero points in today’s race. This means Marquez now leads the championship by 36 points after five races.

In the opening lap of the FrenchGP, Lorenzo yet again launched off like a rocket to lead the race. Home boy, Zarco, who was on pole, was in no mood to be left behind and made an overzealous move on Marquez so as to stay with Lorenzo. This meant Marquez slipped down to fifth, losing places to Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci.

After a few laps, Lorenzo and Zarco were quickly dispatched by Dovizioso. But a few seconds later, Dovizioso lost the front-end and ended up in gravel. Meantime, Marquez was getting his rhythm back and overtook Petrucci without any real difficulty, and was comfortably sitting behind Zarco and Lorenzo. After being haunted by Marquez a couple of times, Zarco made a mistake and crashed, too. Marquez now only had Lorenzo to overtake to take win at Le Mans. And it took him no time to displace Lorenzo.

Once Lorenzo was dealt with, Marquez faced challenge from Petrucci. After Marquez, Petrucci, too, upped his pace and took second position from Lorenzo and was as quick as Marquez at one point. That said, Marquez never allowed Petrucci to get any closer and maintained the pace at the front without breaking a sweat.

Behind Petrucci, Lorenzo started to fade in the closing laps. He was passed by Valentino Rossi, Jack Miller and Dani Pedrosa. Despite all the ongoing struggles with this year’s Yamaha M1, Rossi managed to get it on the podium as he finished third behind Marquez and Petrucci. Miller ran an impressive race to finish fourth, while Pedrosa was fifth.

Lorenzo was sixth, while last year’s winner at Le Mans, Maverick Vinales finished a distant seventh. Returning from the medical centre after yesterday’s massive high-side, Cal Crutchlow rode a brave race to finish eight, ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Suzuki’s Alex Rins.