Victories for Viñales, Luthi and Binder at Silverstone

An interesting race day this Sunday at the British GP held at the Silverstone Circuit, one that will be remembered for Maverick Viñales. The Spanish rider scored his first MotoGP victory, while in Moto2 and Moto3 the wins went to Thomas Luthi and Brad Binder.

In MotoGP the run of different winners continues, and there have now been seven in the last seven races. The most recent was Maverick Viñales, who won a race that started with a scare after a serious crash between Pol Espargaró and Baz, who fortunately are both fine, although tests will be carried out to make sure there are no problems.

That crash led to the red flag. At the restart, Viñales wasted no time in passing Crutchlow and Rossi to pull away alone for his first victory and the first by a Spanish rider since his return. Behind, there was more fighting for the podium between Márquez, Crutchlow and Rossi. The Spaniard first battled the Italian, making several passes, and then the Englishman.

Márquez could have played it safe, since third or fourth place would have been good, but he went for second and paid the price when he went wide in a corner and rejoined in fifth. He soon passed Pedrosa and at least secured fourth, giving up few points to Rossi and also increasing his advantage over Lorenzo, who finished eighth. Márquez now has 210 points, against Rossi’s 160, Lorenzo’s 146 and Viñales’ 125.

Alex Rins has cut the gap in the Moto2 championship. The Spaniard started from the back but came through to seventh place, benefiting from what happened up front in the battle between Lowes and Zarco. Luthi won, and Morbidelli and Nakagami completed the podium.

Lowes and Zarco fought for the podium to the very end. With just a few laps to go they made contact, and the Englishman could not finish, while Zarco did but was handed a 30-second penalty, leaving him out of the points, so Rins moves to within 10 points: 181 points for Zarco against 171 for the Spaniard. Isaac Viñales and Alex Márquez crashed, while Àxel Pons finished 10th, Xavi Vierge 13th and Julián Simón 14th.

The fight for the championship has definitively gone wrong for Jorge Navarro in Moto3, because he scored a zero and Brad Binder won the race, so there are now 86 points between them. The race began on a wet track at a slow pace, forming a group of 12 riders fighting for the win, and Navarro, who started from the back of the grid, was able to join them.

However, the Spaniard was affected by Manzi, who according to him acted recklessly by cutting across and causing Navarro and Migno to fall. Binder won the race ahead of Francesco Bagnaia and Bo Bendsneyder. Binder leads the championship with 204 points to Navarro’s 118. As for other Spaniards, Aarón Canet was ninth, followed by Joan Mir and Jorge Martín.

Photos | MotoGP.com