Marc Marquez took his first Grand Prix victory in Qatar for 11 years with a win from pole in a wild race in Doha on Sunday, the six-time MotoGP world champion surviving first-lap contact with younger brother Alex Marquez to extend his championship lead to 18 points after four rounds.
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From pole, Marquez dropped to second behind fellow Ducati rider Franco Morbidelli after Alex Marquez ran into the back of his older brother moments after the start, Marc Marquez’s bike shedding a piece of right rear bodywork in the contact.
After Morbidelli and Marc Marquez were passed by KTM’s Maverick Vinales on lap 11, Marquez reclaimed the lead at turn six with seven laps to go when Vinales ran wide, and set consecutive fastest laps on laps 18 and 19 to eventually win by 1.8secs.
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Vinales crossed the line in second place for his first podium in his first year with KTM after crossing from Aprilia in the off-season, with Marquez’s teammate Francesco Bagnaia, who qualified 11th, surging through to third place. 4.535secs from victory.
After the race, Vinales was placed under investigation for a potential tyre pressure infringement, a breach that carries a 16-second time penalty that would drop him to 14th in the classification.
Reigning world champion Jorge Martin, in his first race back from a pair of off-season crashes that broke his left wrist, crashed out on lap 14 of 22 while running in the middle of the pack.
Australia’s Jack Miller was another rider not to finish, the Yamaha rider’s miserable Qatar weekend ending with a crash from 17th place on lap nine.
Marc Marquez’s first victory in Qatar since 2014, where he won the opening 10 Grands Prix of the season, was his seventh win in eight starts across sprints and Grands Prix in Thailand, Argentina, Austin and Doha this season, his one blemish coming when he crashed from the lead of the Grand Prix in Texas two weeks ago.
“I needed to manage the front tyres, so for that reason in the first part of the race I was quiet, Morbidelli was going, but I understand yesterday [in the sprint race] with the rhythm that he will not be fast in the second part of the race,” Marquez said.
“When ‘Pecco’ [Bagnaia] went to me [on lap five], I say ‘OK, now I start the race’, and then I start to push. A big surprise when Maverick overtook me … he was super fast, but I had that margin for the end, the last two-three tenths [of a second]. Victory in Qatar … amazing.”
Morbidelli took the lead on the first lap for the first time in a Grand Prix for five years when the Marquez siblings came to blows, and Alex Marquez’s record of finishing second in all seven starts this season was soon as good as over when he ran into Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio on lap three and was given a long-lap penalty for irresponsible riding, the Gresini Ducati rider falling to 13th before recovering to finish in seventh place.
Bagnaia attacked Marc Marquez to take second place on lap five, but Vinales passed both Ducati riders for the lead five laps later in a stunning charge from sixth on the grid.
Marc Marquez reclaimed the lead six laps later and immediately gapped Vinales by six-tenths of a second as Bagnaia’s victory push faded as the laps ticked down.
Marquez’s victory was his 114th MotoGP podium, seeing him draw level with Jorge Lorenzo for the second-most podiums of all-time behind Valentino Rossi (199), and made him the seventh different winner in the past seven races held at the Lusail International Circuit.
Round five of the 22-round MotoGP season will take place at Jerez in Spain from April 25-27.
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