Red Bull Motorsports
MotoGP
Everything you need to know from the Qatar MotoGP
Jorge Lorenzo beat Andrea Dovizioso and Marc Márquez to victory in the first race of 2016.
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And they’re off! MotoGP 2016 is go!
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
The wait for the 2016 MotoGP seasonis over, and even though the first race of the season at Qatar's floodlit Losail circuit may not have delivered the spectacle we'd all hoped for, it still gave us a fix of action we'd been sorely missing.
With new changes rung in – unified spec electronics and a new tyre supplier in the shape of Michelin – it was defending World Champion JorgeLorenzo who got his campaign off to the perfect start with a victory from pole.
Lorenzo is hounded by Dovizioso and Márquez
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
The Yamaha rider took the lead on lap nine of the 22, and smoothly rode his M1 to the 41st MotoGP class win of his career.
Dovizioso held the position for the most part, and Márquez made a pass on the final corner of the last lap to try and snatch it, but Dovi was able to get right back at the Spaniard and his more powerful Ducati served him well in the drive for the finish.
ValentinoRossi had been hovering in fourth, waiting to sweep up if either rider went down. That was a fate that befell Dovizioso's team-mate AndreaIannone when in second place on lap six.
Rossi had to settle for a spot just off the podium, and neither second Repsol Honda Dani Pedrosa or Suzuki's Maverick Viñales looked particularly happy with fifth and sixth respectively.
Marc Márquez tries to keep the Honda in line
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
Andrea Dovizioso scored a podium for Ducati
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
Jorge Lorenzo stuck it on pole in Qatar
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
Maverick Viñales qualified on the front row
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
The view from the podium
One image is better than 1,000 words. That’s the only thing I can say. Today I spoke on the track.
I think the pace of today was better than last year. The bike is better, more balanced, and it’s not a new bike like last year. I think we know more about this bike.
We had a difficult winter, and if on Wednesday you said to me: ‘you’ll finish on the podium’, I would’ve said: ‘where do I need to sign?!’
Here's what else happened during the opening round of the 2016 MotoGP season...
Stefan Bradl shows off his Aprilia
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Things are already starting to slot into place for 2017
With pretty much every rider's contract up at the end of this season, journalists were gearing themselves up for a few months of speculation about who may go where.
Rossi saved them a load of trouble when Yamaha announced on Saturday morning that the Italian had renewed with them until the end of 2018. It means he'll still be riding on a factory machine until at least just a few months short of his 40th birthday.
Yamaha MD Lin Jarvis then confirmed later in the day that Jorge Lorenzo had "the best offer of his racing career" on the table to commit to the factory again.
And KTM's entry into the premier class of MotoGP next year took further shape as they signed Bradley Smith to ride for the factory team.
There was fighting off track, and hot damn it was juicy
It all started when Rossi took exception to what he perceived as Lorenzo cutting his line during qualifying. Check out their little altercation below.
A war of words then erupted, with Lorenzo reacting to the news of Rossi's fresh Yamaha contact deal by replying to a question on the subject with, "I think that looking at what happened in the past with other factories and also his age, it was the best he [Rossi] could do and practically the only option he had."
When told of Lorenzo's words, and asked about the fact that Lin Jarvis has speculated the reason Lorenzo wasn't signing Yamaha's offer just yet because he believed the Spaniard was holding out for an offer from Ducati, Rossi's response was forthright.
"I think that to go to Ducati it takes a lot of courage. You have to have balls to change bikes. So, for that reason, I think he'll stay [at Yamaha]."
Let's hope that one bubbles away for the rest of the season!
Moto2 riders couldn’t contain their excitement at racing again
There were no less than eight jump-starts in the Moto2 race, proving that the riders just couldn't wait to get back to it.
Okay, perhaps we're being a bit unfair, because it appeared that the lights that start the race had been a bit confusing (the third red light that's supposed to come on, before all three then go off to signal the start, didn’t come on).
The sun sets over the Losail circuit
© Toni Börner/RedBull.com
Moto3 delivered the goods
As always, the lightweight class didn't disappoint. Niccolò Antonelli took a photo-finish win over Brad Binder by a margin of just 0.007 seconds, and there was only 0.6 seconds separating the top six. It points to another closely-matched thriller of a Moto3 season.
Helmet design of the weekend
Maverick Viñales finally went and did it. In a nod to his dad naming him after Tom Cruise's character in the film Top Gun, he knocked out a new helmet design for Qatar in homage to his namesake.
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