Quartararo wins at Barcelona as Rossi crashes while chasing

Petronas SRT Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo reclaimed the MotoGP championship lead with a win at Barcelona, joined by a pair of Suzukis on the podium.

The works Yamaha of Valentino Rossi was a victory contender coming into the race but crashed out while running second, while Ducati’s erstwhile championship leader Andrea Dovizioso was wiped out in a first-lap collision, and dropped from first to fourth in the standings.

While polesitter Franco Morbidelli maintained the lead off the line with superb getaway, the customarily fast-starting Ducati of Pramac rider Jack Miller shot past his Yamaha stablemates Quartararo and Rossi.

But Rossi got back ahead of Miller a few corners later and the Aussie then overshot his entry into the sharp Turn 10 right-hander, running wide and surrendering third place to Quartararo.

Rossi ran half a second behind as Morbidelli’s nearest rival in the first few laps, but on the sixth tour he yielded to Quartararo at Turn 1, with the latter then making quick work of Morbidelli’s lead – and producing a similar move at the same corner on lap nine to take over in first place.

By then the three Yamahas had basically escaped from the pack, and the two Petronas men soon began to leave Rossi – who had been dragged back into the lead fight by Quartararo – behind.

But on lap 14 Morbidelli had a huge shake under braking at Turn 1 while right in Quartararo’s wheeltracks, running wide and losing the front off the racing line.

Morbidelli held on to his Yamaha but dropped over a second back from Rossi, only to swiftly retake the spot when the seven-time world champion hit the deck at Turn 2 while pushing to close up on Quartararo.

The errors by his Italian Yamaha stablemates meant Quartararo assumed a lead of nearly three seconds, and it briefly grew from there as Morbidelli started to come under pressure from Suzuki’s Joan Mir, who had profited from another Turn 10 mishap for Miller a few laps prior.

But Quartararo eased off substantially in the final laps, and ultimately won by less than a second.

His team-mate ended up off the podium, as Mir picked off Morbidelli at Turn 1 on the penultimate lap, before the other Suzuki of Alex Rins – who had got past Miller at Turn 10 – made it through on the Petronas Yamaha rider at that same corner later that lap.

Mir, who more than halved Quartararo’s lead after passing Morbidelli, now sits eight points off the championship lead after his third straight podium, while Rins recorded his first top-three finish since Silverstone last year, having started 13th.

Behind Morbidelli, Miller fought off a last-lap attack from his Pramac team-mate Francesco Bagnaia to take fifth, while LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami was close behind the duo in seventh.

Ducati works rider Danilo Petrucci had battled Bagnaia and Nakagami but in the end had to settle for a relatively distant eight.

Petrucci had only just held on to the bike after contact with KTM’s Pol Espargaro through Turn 2 at the start, but while Petrucci managed to avoid crashing the incident had dramatic consequences for Ducati anyway.

Avintia rider Johann Zarco checked up trying to avoid clattering into Petrucci and fell, his crash consequently wiping out Petrucci’s works team-mate Dovizioso.

Espargaro himself then fell after trying to overtake Petrucci at the first corner, while his KTM stablemate Miguel Oliveira – of Tech3 – crashed out of ninth.

Maverick Vinales endured a miserable race, the Yamaha rider starting fifth but dropping all the way down to 16th on the opening lap.

Attrition helped him salvage some points and he saw off LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow late on for ninth.

Race Results