Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi was at his classic best as the seven-time premier class champion came out on top of a gripping duel with Andrea Dovizioso to win the MotoGP season opener at Losail. Valentino Rossi eventually outran Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso to commence the 2015 MotoGP World Championship with a sensational victory on the Movistar Yamaha in the Qatar night race – his 109th Grand Prix win. Rossi was at his classic best as the nine-time world champion utilised his unrivalled race craft to time his assault on the lead to perfection on the YZR-M1, taking over from Dovizioso on the GP15 two laps from the end to set up a grandstand finish. Dovizioso used the Ducati’s top-end speed advantage on the straight to draft past Rossi on the penultimate lap but ran wide, allowing the 36-year-old to fight his way back into the lead again at Turn 2. Rossi put together a faultless final lap, opening enough of a gap to negate the Ducati’s edge on outright speed on the long blast to the chequered flag to hold off Dovizioso, who was joined on the podium by team-mate Andrea Iannone in third place as the Ducati riders erased any doubts over their ability to transfer their qualifying pace on the soft rear to the medium tyre over a full race distance. There was drama at the beginning of the 22-lap race when defending champion Marc Marquez ran off the track and found himself last on the opening lap. Marquez fought his way through the field and overhauled his Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa, but the 22-year-old was unable to do anything about the quartet in front of him, with Jorge Lorenzo – who led much of the race along with Dovizioso – finishing in fourth after dropping off the pace slightly in the closing stages. Behind Marquez in fifth, Pedrosa completed the top six followed by British pair Cal Crutchlow on the CWM LCR Honda and Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Bradley Smith. Rossi’s victory was his first in the season-opening MotoGP race since 2010 as he defied his qualifying position of eighth to take a massively popular victory under the floodlights in Qatar. courtesy of Crash.Net | F1 & MotoGP | Motorsport News Read the whole post here.
