Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali with the podium winners of the MotoGP event Andrea Dovizioso, Marc Marquez and Cal Crutchlow at the end of the VisitQatar Grand Priz at the Losail International Circuit, yesterday.
Italian MotoGP star Andrea Dovizioso (Mission Winnow Ducati) yesterday pipped arch-rival and reigning world champion Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) of Spain in a thrilling finish to the season’s first Grand Prix battle.
Winner in Qatar last year, Dovizioso finished the 22-lap race at Losail International Circuit (LIC) in a time of 42’36.902 just 0.023 seconds ahead of Marquez. It was the same 1-2 combination that featured at last year’s podium in Qatar.
Just when it seemed that Marquez, winner of 44 MotoGP victories, would start the 2019 season with a Grand Prix win and 25 points, Dovizioso found enough pace in his Ducati to take the chequered flag ahead of his Spanish rival following a cat-and-mouse battle under lights in the last three laps.
Great Britain’s Cal Crutchlow brought immense delight in the LCR Honda Castrol camp by finishing third just 0.320 off the pace set by Dovizioso. For Crutchlow, it was a solid week having started the race from sixth spot on the grid.
It was Dovizioso’s 13th MotoGP win and his first since Valencia last year. It was the 32-year-old’s eighth podium in Qatar including six in
MotoGP (2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019).
Suzuki’s Alex Rins last night finished fourth (+0.457) and racing legend Valentino Rossi – who started from 14th – completed the top five for his Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP (+0.600).
Dovizioso chose his words carefully when he said: “It was a strange race. I didn’t have that strategy, but at that moment I thought it was the right strategy. I was managing the rear tyre because everybody was struggling, also in the end it was difficult to manage the tyre.”
He added: “Overall, I’m so happy because I didn’t see nobody (chasing). I couldn’t really know my positive and negative points. I saw Marc in the last lap. I struggled a lot with the rear tyre, so it was good for me to understand that and I pushed really hard in the last lap, but Marc never gives up, he’s always there - but I was able to answer because I put him really on the limit.”
Marquez, winner of nine Grands Prix last season, said yesterday: “It was exactly like last year. Exactly same. I tried to push but here in the circuit when you overtake on the dirty place, you just go wide and it was so difficult to keep the line.”
He added: ““Anyway I tried, I tried to be there, I tried to push, I tried until the end. But I am very happy with these 20 points because it’s a circuit that we struggle on. This weekend we were struggling a lot with the front tyre. If you see, we put the medium, I wasn’t able to push like I would like in the brake points. But we finished the race with 20 points.”
Crutchlow applauded the role played by his team ahead of the season opener last night.
“Obviously a great job by my team. We worked hard this weekend,” Crutchlow said yesterday.
“I was glad to be able to fight. I pushed as hard as I could go, I didn’t have a great feeling with the rear tyre at the end of the race.
I have to thank my surgeons, they’ve put a lot of effort to get me back here, as well as my physiotherapist. And my whole team, we never gave up.”
Maverick Vinales, pole winner on Saturday and Rossi’s Yamaha team-mate at Yamaha, finished in seventh spot. Vinales was a notch below Danilo Petrucci (Mission Winnow Ducati) who was sixth fastest.
Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ecstar) finished in 8th spot (+5.088) followed by Takaaki Nakagami of Japan (LCR Honda Idemitsu, +7.406 seconds) and Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini, +9.636 seconds).
The MotoGP riders will now head to Argentina for the season’s second Grand Prix on March 30.
