Ovation to each of the 21 brave people who crossed the MotoGP finish line in the flooded new Mandalika circuit. A tropical storm in the form of a deluge delayed the start of a race for an hour and a half in which Marc Márquez was sidelined due to his very hard fall suffered in the warm up, and in which Miguel Oliveira gave a recital on the water.
The Portuguese started seventh on the starting grid and rode his KTM in an extraordinary way to sign his fourth victory in the premier class. The definitive overtaking was made by Jack Miller on the fifth lap and from there he escaped alone towards the finish line, which he crossed with a 2.2 advantage over Fabio Quartararo and 3.1 over Johann Zarco, who were his teammates on the podium.
In the case of the current champion, it is normal that he celebrated that second place as if it were a victory, because until this race in Indonesia he was shipwrecked every time he had to run in water. he Frenchman started from pole and started like a rocket in the rain, but before the end of the first lap he lost first place to Oliveira. The Portuguese, by the way, was overtaken by Miller in the second lap to lead for three laps, but the KTM rider gobbled up the Ducati rider in the fifth and had no one else ahead of him in the remaining fifteen laps.
Returning to Quartararo, he began to lose positions and fell to fifth place, but from then on he did not give up another position and came up in the second half of the race to overtake Rins, Miller and Zarco until he rose to second since it tastes like glory.
Fourth place cannot also be known to Miller, because from a true water specialist such as he is, more is always expected. After the Australian, the two Suzukis finished, with Rins ahead of Mir, and after the 2020 champion and until closing the points zone, Morbidelli, Brad Binder, Aleix, Darryn Binder, Bastianini, Pol, Álex Márquez, Marini and Bagnaia.
Special merit goes to the tenth place of the rookie Darryn Binder, that rider who has risen directly from Moto3 to MotoGP and who in Indonesia has signed a brutal race, with a comeback from 23rd place on the grid, the penultimate, with overtaking of all colors . Unforgettable race for the Yamaha rider, and not only because of the crash his brother hit him at turn 16 on the last lap when they were fighting for eighth place.
The only rider who didn’t finish due to a crash was Martín, who crashed at the end of the straight, and it was a miracle that there weren’t more, because there were scares everywhere, especially with whiplash in the acceleration of the last corner, to access goal. There, Martín had already barely managed to stay on his feet a few laps before he fell, and at that point Pol also suffered a wild jolt from his Honda.
Finally, it should be noted that the race was 20 laps instead of the 27 that was originally scheduled for fear that the asphalt would not hold up, which was decomposing dry with the passing of the Moto3 laps and for that reason The Moto2 race had already been shortened from 25 to 16. Fortunately, the Mandalika asphalt offered more grip in the wet than in the dry and, after the uncertainty that arose as to whether or not there would be a race, due to the previous deluge, it was possible to experience a carrerón under the rain in which Oliveira gave a recital.