Andrea Dovizioso masters the monsoon conditions, finishing on the podium ahead of Alex Rins and Pol Espargaro at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia in the final MotoGP race of 2018.

It was Alex Rins who got a perfect start from the middle of the front row and quickly starting putting time into the chasing pack in the horrible conditions, with the Suzuki man finding himself three seconds clear after three laps.

With the rain continuing to come down and come down hard, conditions got worse and riders started to fall like dominoes. Jack Miller was the first to fall, his fifth of the weekend and his Pramac Ducati team-mate Danilo Petrucci fell a lap later.

Pol Espargaro then crashed out of fourth place, although the Spaniard remounted his RC16, which proved to be a pivotal move, keeping him in the race. Marc Marquez then crashed out of the leading pack in a nasty looking highside, which saw his left shoulder once again pop out, although thankfully the World Champion managed to walk away from his incident.

The rain continued to fall, prompting Rins to back off, allowing both Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi to reduce the six second gap in just a couple of laps. Andrea Iannone, Maverick Vinales and Franco Morbidelli all crashed out of the crash, showing just how bad track conditions had got.

It was on lap fourteen when both Dovizioso and Rossi caught and passed Rins when race direction decided that it was unsafe to continue, putting the red flag out.

As the race wasn’t at three quarters race distance, a restart would be needed and half an hour later the grid was lined up again, this time with Rins on pole from Dovizioso and Rossi.

Rins got another perfect start, but this time the factory Ducati of Dovizioso followed him off the line. After just one lap, the Italian moved into the lead and started pulling away from the field.

The front three very quickly pulled away from the chasing pack of Dani Pedrosa who saw his hopes of a final race podium drifting away when firstly Espargaro and then Michele Pirro moved past the Spaniard.

With seven laps to go, Rossi moved under Rins and tried to catch the Ducati man who was now four seconds in the lead. Unfortunately for the Italian, his stint in second place lasted just one lap as he crashed out at turn 12. He did remount but his podium charge was over.

It was to be Dovizioso’s day out front. Backing off in the final laps to nurse his Ducati home, ‘Desmo Dovi’ claimed his fourth win of 2018 by 2.750 seconds from Rins who claimed his fifth podium of the year.

With Rossi in the dirt, Espargaro had KTM’s first MotoGP podium in his hands, and despite some late moments, the KTM man managed to hold off Pirro to secure the Austrian factories first podium in MotoGP.

Pirro was fourth ahead of the departing Dani Pedrosa and rookie Taka Nakagami, who was sixth. Johann Zarco finished seventh and took the top independent rider crown home as he moves from Tech3 to KTM for 2019.

Bradley Smith finished his final MotoGP race in eighth place, ahead of Stefan Bradl and Hafizh Syahrin. Scott Redding rounded his MotoGP career out in eleventh, just holding off Jorge Lorenzo and the remounted Valentino Rossi. Karel Abraham and Jordi Torres rounded out the point scorers and finishing riders.