Jorge Lorenzo dominates 2013 Qatar race - Rossi and Marquez entertain

from Twowheelsblog

Reigning World Champion Jorge Lorenzo started the defense of his title with the first victory of the season with a completely dominating win in Qatar.

The Yamaha rider was in pole position and ran away with the race, with his usual hammering race pace, lapping constantly in the middle 1.55s that was virtually untouchable for the rest of the riders and he would win with a highly comfortable 5.990 second margin.

However it was Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez who literally stole the show with a highly entertaining battle for second place, after the Italian had to fight his way back from a huge error that dropped him back to seventh after being fifth during the first lap.

Trying not to Lorenzo run away, Rossi immediately tried a pass Andrea Dovizioso, but was forced to hang on to the brakes in order not to hit the Ducati rider and had to run wide and lost three spots and had to start all over again, as Dani Pedrosa, Cal Crutchlow and Marc Marquez began to to break away from Dovizioso, but they were already more than one second from Lorenzo.

Rossi took seven laps to pass a very tough Stefan Bradl, who was hard on the brakes and was finally able to pass the LCR Honda rider and would have to try to catch the group in from of him who was more than three seconds ahead of him. Bradl would crash out two laps later.

In a series of fast laps Rossi caught Crutchlow who was running in fourth and passed him with ease while the Brit tried to hit back immediately but ran off track and rejoined but he was no longer able to keep the pace and finished his race in fifth.

With six laps to go Marquez took the second spot from his team mate at the end of the straight, as Rossi joined the Repsol Honda duo and with just laps in the race Rossi overtook Pedrosa who then began to fade. The Italian put Marquez in his sights and on the third to last lap at turn 4, grabbed the second spot from the MotoGP rookie who hung on to Rossi’s tail and retailiated at turn one, but at turn 4 Rossi regained the spot and would close all the doors and would cross over the finish line just 0.2s ahead of Marquez.

Rossi was forced to abandon his M1 after the cooling down lap as he ran out of gas and had to be taken to the pitlane by Andrea Iannone.

Alvaro Bautista took the fifth spot while Andrea Dovizioso after a very plucky start and an excellent defense started to fade and took sixth ahead of the rest of the Ducati riders, Nicky Hayden, Andrea Iannone and Ben Spies who completed the top ten.

MotoGP 2013 Qatar Race Results:

01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 22 laps in 42’39.802
02- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 5.990
03- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 6.201
04- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 9.473
05- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 18.764
06- Alvaro Bautista – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 22.148
07- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 24.355
08- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 24.920
09- Andrea Iannone – Energy T.I. Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 37.124
10- Ben Spies – Ignite Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 44.908
11- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 49.809
12- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 56.495