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MotoGP Qatar: Vinales wins on Yamaha debut

Maverick Vinales has taken victory on his debut for Movistar Yamaha at the Qatar MotoGP round after a titanic scrap with Andrea Dovizioso and team-mate Valentino Rossi after the race was delayed twice by rain showers.

Vinales and Dovizioso exchanged the lead myriad times as the 22-year-old Spaniard exploited far superior sector-three speed but the Italian kept hitting back with top-end power along the start finish straight. Vinales just had enough on the last lap to pull a half-second lead and the the GP17 had no answer.

Dovizioso rode probably the race of his life as he switched to the soft rear Michelin on the grid and he, and the Ducati’s electronics, managed to keep the grip to stay with Vinales and have enough pace to stay ahead of The Doctor.

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Rossi, who had been written off after poor free practice times, held his station after making his way through the field from tenth by just didn’t have enough left at the end after being the fastest man on the track for most of the final third of the race.

Hero of the day was Johann Zarco who also used the soft tyre to lead off the line and pulled a one-second lead over Marquez, Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone before running offline at turn two and crashing, unhurt.

After Zarco went down, Vinales and Zarco were a couple of tenths faster than Marquez - who swapped to the medium front on the grid and away from his favoured hard - Dovizoso and Iannone. The Ecstar Suzuki man pushed past Marquez for second as Dovizioso started to pull a small gap but the Repsol Honda man was having none of it.

With 11 laps to go, Dovizioso was a second ahead and Iannone, who was impatient behind Marquez, lost the front at turn five, again crashing out of a podium spot. Vinales pushed past Marquez a lap later, going past on the brakes at turn one and Rossi followed him through.

The Spaniard had no answer and slowly dropped away as Rossi was again the fastest man on track. Vinales was now in his stride and pulled back eight-tenths of a second in one lap to get right on the Italian’s back wheel. He went past for the first time at turn ten but then Ducati power hauled Dovizioso straight back into the lead - Dovizioso clocking 342 km/h with the tow.

However, Vinales was past again on the brakes but an error into turn one saw Dovizioso back in front. Turn six saw Yamaha once again lead the race and it looked done but the top speed advantage for Dovizioso hauled him back to P1 with three laps left. The decisive pass came with two to go. Vinales, after getting a map switch instruction on his pitboard, went under Vinales at turn five and that was all she wrote.

Marquez trailed the leader by almost seven seconds, indicating a lack of feel from his front tyre, with team-mate Dani Pedrosa four-tenths further back as he was able to reel in his team-leader.

Aleix Espargaro gave Aprilia their best-ever result with sixth as he lost the battle with Pedrosa while Scott Redding took good points as he won his personal scrap with a vastly-improved Jack Miller. Alex Rins was the lone Suzuki man in ninth while Jonas Folger put in some storming lap times towards the end of the race to make up for a bad start to take tenth.

Jorge Lorenzo, also on the soft rear tyre, ran wide at turn five on the first lap and was never in contention, struggling to keep the top ten in sight. Loris Baz, Hector Barbera, Karel Abraham and Tito Rabat completed the top 15.

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Bradley Smith finished in 17th, one behind KTM team-mate Pol Espargaro while Sam Lowes struggled in 18th place.

It was a tough night for Cal Crutchlow who crashed at turn 16 with 17 laps to go and then did it again a lap later at turn 13. It looked like the Isle of Man resident was the victim of a mechanical failure in the second spill.

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