A strong morning in the wet left the Repsol Honda Team hopeful of putting together a solid Sunday in Austria, but eighth and 16th place finishes left them wanting more.
Wet morning warm up saw Marc Marquez and his Repsol Honda Team RC213V shine as the #93 topped the session. A 1’31.403 put him 0.048s clear of Miller and over a quarter of a second ahead of the rest of the field, but as the grid formed up for the race, the weather was still undecided as clouds loomed. Declared a dry race, Marquez seized the moment off the line to fight forward and join the leading group. But an incident at Turn 3 after just a few laps brought out the red flag and the race was stopped.
Marquez’s restart again saw him gain ground off the line, but he would drop back after contact into Turn 1. Falling as low as 14th in the opening laps, the eight-time World Champion rallied to recover throughout the race. Picking his way through and avoiding mistakes, Marquez eventually took eighth at the flag. A lack of traction and feeling with the new set of tires for the restart left Marquez a second slower per lap than in practice.
Fast out of the blocks in warm up, Pol Espargaro was feeling confident in the wet as race day began. With the rain not returning for the race, Espargaro did his best to maximize on his potential but Espargaro’s race was made yet more difficult by a Long Lap Penalty with eight laps to go, dropping him outside the points. Crossing the line in 16th, Espargaro was left disappointed with his return from the summer break as he continues to search for rear grip.
Takaaki Nakagami put together an impressive race, battling tooth and claw until the finish. In fifth place, he ended the day as the top Honda finisher.
There are only a few days to rest before the action resumes at the Red Bull Ring next weekend for round 11 of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship. Determined to improve, the Repsol Honda Team are straight back to work analyzing the weekend’s data with the aim of doing better in a week’s time.