A tenth win in 2019 for Marc Marquez ended the constructors’ championship for Honda after a centimeter-precise drive in Japan.
Marc Marquez’s win at Honda’s home race at Motegi earned Honda the Premier Class Constructors Championship for the 25th time. As a result, Honda wins both the Drivers ‘and Constructors’ titles for the 20th time in the same year as they celebrate the 60th anniversary of the competition. It also marks Honda’s 70th Constructors’ Championship in all classes.
Marc Marquez started perfectly from the line and walked around outside of his competition to lead through the first corner. Fabio Quartararo tried to react to the eight-time world champion’s pace, but within just three laps Marquez had an advantage of over a second and followed him with successive laps of flight. On lap 13 the gap had increased to two seconds and the reigning world champion concentrated on directing the race. The Repsol Honda Team rider crossed the line 0.870 seconds ahead of Quartararo after slowing down on the final laps and continued his perfect record of top 2 finishes in 2019. The win is the tenth in 2019 and his fourth in a row, the first time Marquez has achieved four victories in a row in the premier class since 2014.
Marc Marquez celebrated his 54th victory in the premier class and can compete with the legendary Mick Doohan as the most successful Honda driver in the premier class. The 14 podium places, 13 of them in a row, from 2019 bring Marc Marquez also to 350 world championship points, only 33 points behind Jorge Lorenzo’s record of 383 points in the premier class of all time. 75 points are still outstanding.
Jorge Lorenzo made his 200th start in the premier class and struggled through a difficult start to the Japanese GP. Lorenzo crossed the line in 17th place and is not happy with the result, but is happy about his improved feel and speed on board the Honda RC213V in the final laps. At the finish, Lorenzo narrowed the gap between him and the race winner to the smallest distance since his return from an injury – a trend that he will continue in just a week at Phillip Island.
The MotoGP World Championship is now entering its 17th round, the Australian Grand Prix from October 25th to 27th on Phillip Island.