It was not a straightforward win for Lorenzo, but the 2015 MotoGP Champion has won the first race of the season at Losail international Circuit, claiming the first full 25 points and leading the championship once again.
So it is a new season, with new electronics, new tyre manufacturers, new ECU rules, and everyone running with 22 litres of fuel. Movistar Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo has set the fastest lap with his pole position in qualifying and the full pack got away under the floodlights with a clean start made by all.
Lorenzo led into the first corner followed by the two factory Ducatis ridden by Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso, teammate Valentino Rossi was next ahead of the two Repsol Honda riders Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa and the lead Suzuki ridden by Maverick Vinales.
Iannone challenged Lorenzo towards the end of the first lap. Lorenzo’s first position was stolen by the Ducatis who slipstreamed him and overtook him one either side; Lorenzo tried to outbreak the two and went wide allowing Rossi to close in on him. The Ducatis out-accelerated the Yamahas again down the start-finish straight over the next few laps; both Ducatis had soft front and rear Michelins and Lorenzo chose the hard front and soft rear.
The top five riders broke away with Marc Marquez taking the final place at the back of the group. Lorenzo looked to take a different line to try and find a way back past the Ducatis. Marquez overtook on the inside of Rossi on a left-handed corner; Rossi had gone was a little wide after 2 laps and appeared to drop off the back of the group. Within three laps the riders had broken through the 1:56-minute barrier.
Pedrosa and Vinales formed the second group just over a second behind four laps in; it looked like Pedrosa was holding Vinales up initially. LCR Honda Team rider Cal Crutchlow followed just behind out on his own as the fastest British rider.
Dovizioso took the lead at the start of the sixth lap at turn one, but only briefly as he left a slight gap that Iannone took advantage of straight away. The pair continued to battle for half a lap before Iannone crashed at Turn 13 after touching the white line; he walked away unharmed. Crutchlow also crashed out at Turn 4 with sixteen laps to go and was unable to re-join.
A slight gap of half a second now broke out slightly between Dovizioso and Lorenzo, and Marquez and Rossi. Rossi stayed closely behind Marquez who looked like he was struggling to turn the Honda. He did have the small wings installed for the race but the front of the bike lifted a lot throughout the race; the rear end tended to slide a lot for Marquez. Marquez soon caught up to Lorenzo however Lorenzo went on to regain his lead from Dovizioso with fourteen laps to go.
Pol Espargaro (Monster Tech 3 Yamaha) led the next group of four including Hector Barbera (Avintia Ducati), Bradley Smith (Monster Tech 3 Yamaha) and Scott Redding (Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati). Eugene Laverty looked impressive on his ASPAR Team Moto GP Ducati after gaining twelfth ahead of injured Jack Miller (Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc DVS) with twelve laps to go ahead of the Aprilias and Miller’s rookie teammate Tito Rabat. Laverty’s teammate Yonny Hernandez retired towards the start of the race.
Stefan Bradl crashed his Aprilia with ten laps to go on fast corner Turn 16; he was able to walk away unhurt and returned to the pits. Loris Baz crashed his Avintia Ducati on the left handed corner of Turn 2, he was also unhurt.
Lorenzo appeared to break away with ten laps to go as Marquez stalked Dovizioso. Rossi set his fastest lap with 8 laps to go and closed the gap between him and Marquez. The Ducati accelerated down the start-finish straight which meant that Marquez had to redo his work to catch Dovizioso every lap.
Things appeared to settle for a few laps and the new Michelins appeared to still be performing well. With four laps to go Marquez looked to close up to Dovizioso again, he had a slight wobble and Marquez was able to attack and take second place from him on soft front and rear Michelins; Dovizioso was unable to catch him down the straight where he was most likely to regain his position. Lorenzo broke through the 1:55 minutes barrier with two laps to go setting the fastest lap of the race of 1:54.927 and setting a new lap record; this time was still 0.384 seconds slower than Lorenzo’s pole position time but the lap record time has to be recorded during the race.
Then as we entered the last lap Dovizioso attacked once again; the acceleration of the Ducati allowed him to get past Marquez and he overtook him going into Turn 1. Just before turn 16, Marquez made one final attempt to overtake but went wide allowing Dovizioso to slide back through. The two accelerated down the line almost 2 seconds after Lorenzo to finish in second (Dovizioso) and third (Marquez) with Rossi just behind. Pedrosa and Vinales came in over fourteen seconds behind the leader, followed by the Monster Tech 3 Yamahas of Pol Espargaro who just beat teammate Smith to the line, then the Ducatis of Barbera and Redding and Vinales’ teammate Aleix Espargaro.
