Valentino Rossi dominated the Spanish Grand Prix, bouncing back from his early crash in the previous round in Austin, to defeat MotoGP arch-rivals Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez.In a Lorenzo-esque performance, Rossi led every lap – and his 2.3s winning margin did not reflect his true dominance.
Lorenzo led for a split second, after lunging ahead on lap two but overshooting the Nieto corner, but after that Rossi was able to extend a 2s lead which he managed throughout the 27-lap race.
Lorenzo fended off the attentions of Marquez in the first half of the race, before pulling away in the second half and looking briefly like challenging Rossi before losing pace in the latter stages.
Honda’s Dani Pedrosa finished fourth after a great opening lap from seventh on the grid, ahead of the Suzukis of Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales.
It was a disastrous race for Ducati, with Andrea Dovizioso again being forced to retire, leaving Andrea Iannone to salvage its honour in a distant seventh.
Story of the race
With all the frontrunners on the same tyre strategy (hard front, medium rear), poleman Rossi got a great launch and led into Turn 1 ahead of Lorenzo, Marquez and Dovizioso. The last-named made a fantastic start, but got edged out at the first corner after momentarily grabbing second.
Pedrosa lunged past Marquez for third on the opening lap, making it a Yamaha 1-2 and Honda 3-4 at the end of the opening lap.
Suzuki’s Aleix Espargaro led the chase, quickly demoting Dovizioso to sixth, with Suzuki teammate Vinales in seventh ahead of an inspired Eugene Laverty on his 2014-spec Aspar Ducati.
Lorenzo briefly grabbed the lead one lap two, but Rossi quickly repassed him. Behind them, Marquez repassed Pedrosa for second at the final corner.
Rossi pulled a 2s gap over Lorenzo as the race settled down, leaving him to deal with Marquez – as Pedrosa fell away from the lead fight.
Marquez was unable to find a way past Lorenzo, and then dropped away in the second half of the race as he had predicted.
But Lorenzo similarly had nothing for Rossi, who extended his lead to well over 4s before backing down to a 2.3s winning margin.
The battles behind
Vinales passed Dovizioso for sixth at the last corner in the opening skirmishes, but well adrift of Suzuki colleague Aleix Espargaro up the road.
Dovizioso retired from ninth in a puff of smoke from his works Ducati on lap nine, promoting Laverty to leading Ducati status, from Pol Espargaro (Tech 3 Yamaha), Hector Barbera (Avintia Ducati) and Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda).
Pol Espargaro passed Laverty for seventh just before half distance, while Andrea Iannone got into a great scrap with Crutchlow as he tried to salvage the works Ducati team’s pride.
Iannone worked his way through the midfielders as passed Pol Espargaro with six laps to go.
Laverty finished ninth ahead of Barbera and Crutchlow.
Alvaro Bautista crashed out of 12th on his Aprilia, the only other non-finisher besides Dovizioso.