It sometimes happens that a driver at the front of a Grand Prix deliberately slows down his pace, as was the blatant case with Jorge Lorenzo in Valencia in 2013.
In general, this maneuver aims to allow other drivers to move up, and possibly hinder, their closest opponent in the championship.
This was also the case during the last Japanese Grand Prix with Andrea Dovizioso within a small second, a phenomenon immediately perceived by the drivers of the leading group, Marc Marquez and Cal Crutchlow, before being noticed by the journalists in analyzing the time sheets.
We can see this in our illustrative graphic.
At a press conference, Marc Márquez was asked what could be the reason for this behavior and if it was intended to embarrass him.
Response from the interested party…
Marc Márquez : " I don't know. I don't know ! You can think of it as gas mileage, you can think about tires, or you can think about it purely as a matter of strategy. But also, sometimes I let it go a little bit because when you see 0.3 or 0.4, you keep attacking. And I wanted him to keep attacking.
Yes, he played his strategy and I played mine. It's a strange thing to say but for this race in Japan, tire life was not an issue. You could keep a consistent pace throughout the race. So maybe it was about gas mileage, or just a matter of strategy. I don't think it had to do with his physical condition because he is in good shape.
But yes, it’s something we’ll have to know for next year.”
Photo credit: MotoGP.com
