After the thrills in Moto3 and Moto2 we settled in expecting a MotoGP snooze fest in Qatar especially when Casey Stoner took off leaving Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa behind him, instead it turned into another race thriller with Jorge Lorenzo taking an amazing victory over Dani Pedrosa and StonerJorge Lorenzo led the race from the start, but on the third lap Stoner overtook his team mate at the end of the straight and then set his eyes on the Yamaha rider.
Just one lap later the reigning World Champion reeled him in and with a furious overtake at the pits straight took the head of the race and started to put an almost two second gap from the two Spaniards.
With just four laps to go Stoner suddenly seemed to have problems as unexpectedly he started to fade and Lorenzo and Pedrosa suddenly had him in their sights, with Pedrosa trying an overtaking manouver but Lorenzo retaliated immediately and then latched onto Stoner and passed him with just three laps to go with Stoner trying to slipstream on the straight, but Lorenzo got the better exit at turn 1 and then ran away.
The Australian then had his hands full with his team mate who got the best of him and he too speeded away to take second, despite nursing a big cold.
Stoner ended up a very safe third and while everyone was thinking that chattering and tire problems had gotten him, it was instead a physical problem, arm pump that weakened him, but Livio Suppo said that his rider had problems with his new gloves.
It was an all in-house almost 20 lap race battle between Yamaha Tech3 riders Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow for fourth place, with the Brit rider finally getting the best of the Italian on lap 17 and defending his position to the chequered flag.
Moto2 champion and MotoGP rookie Stefan Bradl was up to sixth for most of the race, before being hunted down by Nicky Hayden, Alvaro Bautista and Hector Barbera who exchanged places several times and left Bradl down in 8th after Hector Barbera ran wide into the gravel pit.
As expected after his horrible qualifying session, Valentino Rossi finished in 10th with very erratic and unexplainable lap times, while Ben Spies had an even more horrible race as he faded to 11th and was the last MotoGP rider before the hoardes of CRTs which was won by Colin Edwards.
MotoGP Qatar race results 01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 42’44.
21402- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.
85203- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 2.
90804- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 17.
11405- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 17.
42006- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 28.
41307- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 28.
44608- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 29.
46409- Hector Barbera – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 31.
38410- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 33.
66511- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 56.
90712- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – Suter BMW – + 58.
08813- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 1’10.
65014- Yonny Hernandez – Avintia Blusens – FTR Kawasaki – + 1’15.
94315- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 1’26.
73316- Ivan Silva – Avintia Blusens – FTR Kawasaki – + 1’43.
32717- Mattia Pasini – Speed Master Team – ART GP12 – + 1’47.
41918- James Ellison – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP12 – + 1’51.
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