Chennai: Andrea Dovizioso won a thrilling season-opening Qatar MotoGP night race after another showdown with Marco Marquez, went in the Italian’s favour at the very final corner.
Andrea Dovizioso is a professional motorcycle racer who competes in the MotoGP world championship for the factory Ducati Corse team.
In a repeat of last year’s Losail race, Dovizioso fended off a last-corner lunge from Honda man Marquez for victory – having been at the head of a multi-rider pack for much of the distance.
“If you stay calm and work in the right way with the team, this can happen,” said Andrea Dovizioso after winning by 0.023s. LCR rider Cal Crutchlow made it two Hondas on the podium, overcoming Suzuki’s Alex Rins for third, while Valentino Rossi recovered from 14th on the grid to complete the top five.
After finishing third, comeback king Crutchlo said, “Itās great to be able to race in MotoGP, let alone be on the podium.”
In the race, a 10-rider pack was formed at the head of the field early on, as Dovizioso made the best getaway out of the front row starters to take an early lead. The extent to which Dovizioso was moderating his pace was shown by rookie Fabio Quartararo, who had to start from the pitlane after stalling on the grid – lapping over a second quicker than the leaders in the early stages.
Rins mounted a fresh offensive to repass Petrucci and Marquez to move back into second on lap 15, but on lap 20 he made another mistake and outbraked himself at Turn 1, which left the fight for victory to be decided between Dovizioso and Marquez, who passed his adversary at the Turn 4 and 5 double right-hander on the penultimate lap to lead.
But Dovizioso was able to retake the lead at Turn 1 at the start of the final lap, and rebuffed a subsequent attack from the reigning champion at Turn 10. Marquez made one final attempt at wresting back the lead at the last corner, but was unable to block Dovizioso’s line and was outdragged by the Italian on the run to the finish line.
“I lost, but Iām very happy” said Marc Marquez, who finished with P2. Crutchlow, gifted by Rins’ late mistake, held on for third by a tenth of a second ahead of the Spaniard. He completed a close podium in his first race since last October’s serious ankle injuriesĀ as just 0.6s covered the top five riders, fromĀ Dovizioso to Rossi, who started from 13th.
Only three riders failed to finish a relatively incident-free race, with Pramac Ducati pair Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller both dropping out as Miller’s seat foam came loose early in the race and he had to throw it off the bike, and later retired.
– Report by Afshan Siddique