Quartararo fends off Mir to claim victory in Catalan MotoGP, Dovizioso crashes out

Fabio Quartararo cruised to a third win of the season in Barcelona, thrusting him into the points lead as Andrea Dovizioso crashed out on the opening lap.

Quartararo dropped to fourth after a slightly sluggish start, but quickly regained his third place starting spot by passing Jack Miller on the opening lap.

He then spent the opening few laps stalking second-placed Valentino Rossi and leading team-mate Franco Morbidelli, passing Rossi with a clinical move into Turn 1 half-a-dozen tours into the contest.

He then quickly closed down his fellow Petronas SRT M1, snatching the lead away from Morbidelli at the same bend just a couple laps later.

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The Frenchman soaked up the pressure from the San Marino Grand Prix winner over the subsequent circulations, and was given a handy advantage when Morbidelli missed his braking point into the first corner and ran wide-dropping to third behind Rossi as a result.

Rossi struggled to make much of an impact on the leader though after moving into the runners-up spot, before disaster struck just past mid-distance as he lost the front of his M1 on the entry to Turn 2-ending his race in the gravel and prolonging his quest for a 200^th premier class rostrum for another day.

This left Quartararo with a near three-second lead out in front, an advantage he used to the full as he began to struggle for tyre life in the closing stages while being caught by the Suzuki’s of Joan Mir and Alex Rins.

Quartararo controlled the gap to Mir to take the chequered flag 0.928clear of the Spaniard, bagging Petronas SRT’s fourth win of 2020 and the riders championship lead to boot.

Mir held off a late charge from team-mate Rins to bag his third consecutive podium finish, the latter finally bagging the first rostrum of his so-far tricky campaign to secure Suzuki’s first double podium since its MotoGP comeback.

Morbidelli also ran into tyre problems late on and slipped to fourth, while Miller held off team-mate Francesco Bagnaia and LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami for fifth.

The sole remaining factory Ducati of Danilo Petrucci came home eighth ahead of the disappointing Maverick Vinales.  

The factory Yamaha man made a shocking start from fifth on the grid, dropping as low as 16^th in the early laps before lapping faster than anyone in the latter part of the encounter to beat the returning Cal Crutchlow at the death, the Brit bagging his first top ten of the season.

KTM’s promising day took a hit late on as first Pol Espargaro crashed out from sixth while trying to hold off Petrucci for sixth just past mid-distance, before Miguel Oliveira went down at Turn 2 in a similar vein to Rossi with only a few laps remaining.

This left Brad Binder to take a lowly 11^th after falling back over the second half of the contest, with Iker Lecuona taking a couple of points for 14^th behind Alex Marquez’s factory Honda RC213-V.

Andrea Dovizioso never got the chance to make up for his Saturday struggles-in which he qualified only 17^th– after getting involved in an incident with Avintia’s Johann Zarco on the opening lap.

Petrucci lost the front of his Desmosedici on entry to Turn 2 for the first time, forcing the pursuing Zarco to check up and therefore leaving Dovizioso nowhere to go but into the back of the GP19.

The pair both went down as a result into early retirement, further throwing Dovizioso’s title hopes into doubt.

The three-time MotoGP vice champion now drops to fourth in the points standings, 24 behind new leader Quartararo.

Mir has now moved into second overall-eighth down on the Petronas SRT M1- while Vinales drops to third after struggling in Barcelona.

Barcelona, Sunday, September 27, 2020