Race day coverage: 2014 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix

MOTOGP: ROSSI TAKES SENSATIONAL WIN
Valentino Rossi has taken a stunning victory in the 2014 Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island to celebrate his 250th start in the senior class of world motorcycle racing.

Rossi took full advantage of an uncharacteristic slip-up by World Champion Marc Marquez to seize the lead on the 18th lap of the 27-lap race and raced away to beat Movistar Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo by 10.836 seconds as their main competitors came to grief over the closing stages.

It was Rossi’s sixth victory in the senior class at Phillip Island but his first since 2005, also on a Yamaha. It was also the 82nd senior win of the Italian’s stunning career – the first, in Great Britain, came in the last year of the 20th century – and all the sweeter in that he came through from eighth on the grid to secure it.

“It’s fantastic, coming after such a great race,” said Rossi. “Unfortunately I started from behind but I knew I had good pace and a good setting. But on the second corner when I saw Marc and Jorge first and second and I was still sixth I thought, ‘It will be hard…’

“But once I reached Jorge it was a great battle with a lot of overtaking, and today I was a little bit faster. Marc was not too far and I tried to stay focused because second place would have been very important for second in the Championship. Then I saw Marc crash…

“To come back to the first position here at the Island, one of the most important and beautiful circuits of the season, is a fantastic feeling.”

Third, on his first premier-class podium, was Englishman Bradley Smith on the Monster Energy Tech 3 Yamaha after his compatriot Cal Crutchlow saw a certain second place disappear in an instant with a fall from his Ducati at Turn 4.

“I didn’t even realise I was third,” beamed the 23-year-old, “but then I came round the first corner and only Valentino and Jorge were there!

“I made some massive mistakes early in the race but I slowly started to calm down, put my head down and tried to put a good pace together. It was a crazy result, really, for me!”

Two-time title-winner Marquez looked set to equal Mick Doohan’s long-standing record of 12 wins in a season when his Repsol Honda led the way for the first two-thirds of the race but the Spaniard lost the front of RC213V on the way down to Turn 10 and slid into retirement.

The other Repsol Honda of Dani Pedrosa had earlier come into the pits to retire after seven laps, meaning the Spaniard has almost certainly lost his chance of finishing runner-up to Marquez.

Bridgestone’s radical new asymmetric front tyre came under intense scrutiny as a series of riders went down when their bikes were more or less vertical and under no extreme cornering stress.

Marquez himself, Pol Espargaro on the other Monster Energy Tech 3 Yamaha and Crutchlow’s Ducati were all on the asymmetric front. Lorenzo was also extremely disgruntled after looking a strong chance for victory before his own extra soft front tyre began to slow the M1 down.

Other casualties included Andrea Iannone, his Ducati tapping the rear of Pedrosa’s Honda and going off on lap six, and Stefan Bradl, whose LCR Honda hit the back of Aleix Espargaro’s Forward Yamaha as the German made an optimistic lunge into Turn 4 on lap 20.

Australia’s Broc Parkes bravely tried to race but was forced into early retirement by an injury picked up in his heavy practice fall. “My shoulder’s just no good,” the PBM rider explained. “I tried to ride but I couldn’t put any weight on the front of the bike so the bike couldn’t turn.”

MOTO2: VINALES CONTINUES RED-HOT FORM
Spaniard Maverick Vinales pulled clear of his
challengers in the final five laps to win the Moto2™ race at the 2014
Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island.

It was
the Paginas Amarillas HP 40 rider’s second win in the last three races,
as he really starts to hit some red-hot form just as his one-year
tenure in Moto2™ begins to wind down. In 2015, Vinales will step up to
the MotoGP™ ranks with Suzuki.

Behind Vinales, last start winner
Thomas Luthi (Interwetten Sitag) slipped underneath polesitter Esteve
Rabat (Marc VDS Racing) on the final lap to move into second spot,
leaving Rabat with his hands full fending off teammate Mika Kallio.

Rabat
got that job done, and is now 41 points in front of Kallio, who
finished fourth, with two rounds remaining in the 2014 championship.

Vinales
is out of the title hunt, but today he was the man of the moment as he
put down the hammer and was rewarded with a comfortable 1.329-second
victory.

“For sure, difficult conditions, but I enjoyed it a
lot,” beamed the Spaniard after his third victory in the Moto2 class.
“Today it felt like a Moto3 race! All the laps, a lot of overtakes, it
was incredible, so we enjoyed it.

“But at the end I felt for sure
I could make a gap as the pace was really slow. I would like to thank
my team because in the last three races they have done an incredible job
and now we must try to win more races. We have this target now, and we
can do it.”

Luthi’s second place saw him move up one spot up in
the Championship to fourth at the expense of Dominique Aegerter
(Technomag carXpert).

“I enjoyed it a lot,” Luthi agreed. “It was
a difficult race, especially with the wind – just the start the wind
turned 180 degrees and some corners were completely different to ride
from warm-up. That’s why we saw so many mistakes from all the riders in
that leading group. It was wild!”

The normally unflappable Rabat
made a number of uncharacteristic errors, with Turn Four a particular
bogey spot. He eventually settled in the last third of the race, but
just didn’t have the speed to push for the win. Rabat has now been
winless for the last three Grands Prix.

“I made a very good start
but I don’t know what happened in corner four,” he admitted. “This
morning I could brake much later with a full tank, I had the reference
points from the morning but now it was impossible to stop the bike.

“I
tried to follow Vinales but in the last sector I made a big mistake and
the bike was completely sideways so I said, ‘OK, Tito, try to do your
best, the important thing is to finish in front of Mika’. I think it was
a clever decision, better than crashing…”

Sam Lowes (Speed Up)
scored his best result in his rookie Moto2™ season in fifth place, and
only lost contact with the top four over the last few laps.

Sandro
Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GPO), a former Moto3™ winner at Phillip
Island, just pipped German Marcel Schrotter (Tech 3) for sixth, and
Aegerter completed the top eight.

Australia’s Anthony West (QMMF
Racing) made a slick start, and was as high as 18th from his starting
position of 25th before he ran off the track on lap nine. He sliced his
way back to 22nd, with the two Aussie wildcards, Aiden Wagner (Marc VDS
Racing) and Max Croker (Tesca Racing), finishing 26th and 27th.

Johann Zarco (AirAsia Caterham), who started from second on the grid alongside Rabat, crashed out of sixth place on lap 18.

MOTO3: MILLER DOES THE BUSINESS
Australian Jack Miller has kept his Moto3™ World Championship hopes alive – and brought an adoring home crowd to its feet – with a sensational victory in the 2014 Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island.

After a typical Moto3™ race with too much slicing and dicing to mention, the 19-year-old from Townsville held off World Championship leader Alex Marquez, 18, on the drag to the finish line at the tail end of 23 extraordinary laps of the 4.45km Grand Prix circuit.

Miller’s fifth win of the year, which included a new lap record of 1:36.302, came with just 0.029 seconds to spare over Marquez, while the second Estella Galicia 0,0 Honda of Alex Rins claimed the final spot on the podium.

Miller, the first Australian to win a Moto3™ race at Phillip Island, is now 20 points behind Marquez with two rounds remaining in the 2014 Moto3™ title, with the next round to be held in Malaysia next Sunday, followed by the finale in Valencia on November 9.

“I definitely gave that my 120 per cent,” said an elated Miller after his fifth victory of 2014 – and the best of his career to date.

“I nearly dropped the front at MG corner (Turn Four) trying to get the last sections perfect I’m super-duper happy and I can’t thank my team enough.”

The last half of the Moto3™ race saw either Miller or Marquez lead across the finish line, although the KTM of Miller didn’t have enough legs to keep him at the sharp end of the snarling pack – at one stage 11 riders were within one second of each other – by Turn One.

But that only seemed to galvanise him even more, and he often used Turn Four to pick his way forward again.

That was the underlying pattern, until the final lap when Miller bucked the trend and was in the lead by turn one. From that point, he bravely put up the shutters, and on the final run down Gardner Straight weaved and changed direction to prevent Marquez and Rins using the slipstream to their advantage.

That proved to be a masterstroke, as Miller’s 53rd Moto3™ race became his most memorable – and the icing on the cake was Mick Doohan presenting the winning trophy.

The top six in the race flashed over the line within 0.242 seconds of each other, with Efren Vazquez (Saxo-Print-RTG) fourth from teammate John McPhee, with Alexis Masbou (Ongetta-Rivacold Honda) sixth.

Three big names who were in the leading pack had unceremonious exits from the race after crashes: Isaac Vinales (Calvo KTM) on lap 10 at Turn Two, while Romano Fenati (SKY Racing Team VR46 KTM) and Danny Kent Red Bull Husqvarna Ajo) had a coming together a Turn Four on lap 22.

Meanwhile, it was a disaster for Aussie wildcard Remy Gardner (Laglisse Calvo KTM) when he was forced to start the race from pit lane when his bike stalled at the start of the sighting lap, but he inched his way back to 26th position with lap times comparable to the riders who finished mid-pack. The second Aussie wildcard, Olly Simpson (KTM), was last to finish in 28th position.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WARM-UP
If you’re a Dani Pedrosa fan, hang on to your #26 hat.

The diminutive Spaniard left it late to find his qualifying form on Saturday and starts from row two, but in the final track rehearsal for the 27-lap 2014 Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix he fired in a superb final lap to make it a Repsol Honda 1-2 at the top of the warm-up times.

World Champion Marquez, who starts from his 12th pole, may have topped the 20-minute session with a 1:29.871 but his teammate was just 0.028 behind him – and Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was only a further 0.029 adrift.

The only other man to break the 1:30 barrier was Andrea Iannone, the Pramac Ducati rider hanging on grimly in a huge tank-slapping moment out of Turn 12 to fire in a 1:29.948.

The second factory Yamaha of Valentino Rossi, who today starts his 250th premier class Grand Prix, was fifth ahead of front-row qualifier Cal Crutchlow’s works Ducati.

Aussie Broc Parkes on his out-gunned PBM entry posted a best time of 1:33.031 and was 23rd.

Normal service resumed in the Moto2 warm-up, with Marc VDS Racing Team’s Esteve ‘Tito’ Rabat the fastest rider on the Phillip Island circuit ahead of this afternoon’s 25-lap race.

But this time Rabat, who will start from a record-breaking ninth pole of the season, didn’t monopolise all the front running, with Briton Sam Lowes (Speed Up) – a World Supersport podium finisher at Phillip Island -- spending some time at the top of the standings during the 20-minute session.

Lowes completed warm-up in second, ahead of German Marcel Schrotter (Tech 3), Louis Rossi (SAG Team) and Maverick Vinales (Paginas Amarillas HP 40), with the latter lucky to survive the session unscathed after nearly being pitched over the handlebars during the final minute.

While Vinales was fortunate, a few riders still left their teams with some pre-race repairs, including Spaniard Ricard Cardus (Tech 3) who crashed at Turn Five.

Mika Kallio (Marc VDS Racing Team), the only rider capable of denying Rabat the 2014 Moto2 title, was well back in 14th during warm-up, while Anthony West (QMMF Racing Team) was the leading Aussie in 20th with local wildcards Aiden Wagner (Marc VDS Racing Team) and Max Croker (Tesca Racing) in 31st and 32nd respectively.

In Moto3 the field started one rider short: Brazilian Eric Granado suffered spinal damage in a heavy Saturday fall and is in hospital, with some of his colleagues carrying messages of support on their bikes for the 18-year-old as they went out.

Here too the cream rose to the top: Championship leader and pole-sitter Alex Marquez put his Estrella Galicia Honda in first place with a 1:36.289, but Jack Miller was just 0.123s behind on his Red Bull KTM Ajo and the other man in with a title shout, Alex Rins on the second Estrella Galicia bike, was a further 0.328 behind the Australian in third.

Miller starts from the third row – but Marquez, who is on pole for the third time this season, did the same in Motegi last weekend and went on to win the race.

In the session that perhaps gives the best indication of race pace, Remy Gardner did superbly well to be 20th on the Team Laglisse Calvo KTM with a 1:37.740, while fellow-Aussie Olly Simpson clocked 1:39.547 to be 32nd-fastest in the session.
                                     

Today’s victory followed the same narrative as the earlier two, as New South Welshman Hook led from the front and then absorbed early pressure from his three teammates: Victorian Wayne Maxwell and another NSW duo, Jamie Stauffer and Troy Herfoss.

Stauffer and Herfoss eventually lost the tow to finish third and fourth respectively, which left Maxwell as the one to try and snap the Hook stranglehold.

Maxwell gave his all – he set the fastest lap of the weekend on the penultimate lap – but it still wasn’t enough to loosen Hook’s vice-like grip. Hook won the eight-lapper by 0.165 seconds.

Hook’s victory also saw him claim the Phillip Island Superbike Championship from Stauffer.

“If you told me at the start of the weekend that I would get the clean sweep, I would not have expected it,” said Hook. “But I was fast in practice and qualifying, so I knew I had the pace.

“I am extremely satisfied and have enjoyed racing on the best circuit in Australia. Now my work is done and I’ll just sit back and watch the World Championship races this afternoon.”

Hook completed the Phillip Island Championship on 100 points from Stauffer (98) and Jones (84), and in Prostock it was Condon (118) from Ben Henry (Kawasaki, 95) and Richard Ellis (BMW, 73).

South Australian Daniel Falzon defeated fellow Yamaha rider Aaron Morris from New South Wales by just five-thousandths of a second in the third and final Supersport support race at the 2014 Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island.

It was always going to be a close finish after the pair punched and counter-punched throughout the eight-lapper, but when they flashed across the finish line even the timing equipment couldn’t separate them initially.

Eventually Falzon was given the nod to make it a clean sweep of wins this weekend, and also victory in the inaugural Phillip Island Supersport Championship, which has been held across the World Superbike and MotoGP rounds at the Bass Strait circuit.

“I passed the line and looked up to see who had won but it was inconclusive,” said Falzon. “But I eventually got the win and I’m happy to pull it off after what has been a sensational weekend of racing.”

Morris was philosophical: “It was a bit of a shame to lose that one, especially after I also came second in a close one on Friday. But it was good fun and I had an awesome time.”

Meanwhile, third-placed Queenslander Callum Spriggs (Yamaha) was still in with a shot of claiming victory on the last lap, but he just couldn’t get a look-in and finished 0.445 seconds behind Falzon.

Victorian Ryan Taylor (Yamaha) and another New South Welshman, Kane Burns (Suzuki) were fourth and fifth, while Mitch Levy (NSW, Yamaha) crashed out of fourth place on lap three.

Falzon won the Phillip Island Supersport Championship on 115 points, from Morris (102), Spriggs (97), Levy (59) and Hudson Pitt (Yamaha, 57).