Breaking his Ducati jinx a season and a half later, Jorge Lorenzo took his first win for the Italian team in Mugello. The 2018 MotoGP Italian Grand Prix was full of action with reigning champion Marc Marquez crashing out of second, while pole sitter Valentino Rossi finished third behind Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso. The top seven riders qualified the race within a second of each other and the Italian GP was always going to be full of surprises. While the win is certainly a long due for Lorenzo, Rossi managed to add a new milestone to his name by winning 5000 points in the premier class championship.
Lorenzo started second on the grid in the Italian GP and was quick to take an early lead passing Rossi. Marquez started sixth and moved up to third tailing the Yamaha closely. By Lap 23, Marquez had passed the Yamaha and was now charging towards Lorenzo to take the lead. It seemed that the Honda rider would once again take a win home, but a crash on Lap 5 ended his run much earlier than expected. Marquez lost his front end coming into the Scarperia right-hander, and slid into the gravel trap. The incident ended Marquez chances of taking a podium and he finished 16th of 17 finishers.
Lorenzo continued to lead the race with a gap of just 0.7s but managed to extend the same to 1.5s by Lap 13. The second works Ducati piloted by Andrea Dovizioso was catching up soon with the front runners by then. Dovizioso started 7th on the grid and showed incredible pace passing Iannone and Rossi to take second behind his teammate.
Rossi managed to add a new milestone to his name by winning 5000 points
Even as Dovi charged towards his teammate in an attempt to pass, Lorenzo was at his best form today and managed to make a margin of 6.3s before taking the chequered flag, his 45th premier class win. Dovi took second, but not before dropping pace in the closing laps that allowed Rossi to catch up. The Ducati rider eventually managed to finish at P2 with a gap of 2.59s.
Rossi's third wasn't easy either as the Italian fielded competition from Suzuki duo Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins, as well as Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci. Petrucci even took third briefly before dropping to seventh in the final laps. Iannone had stellar pace through the race but it wasn't enough to seal a podium as he finished fourth about a second behind Rossi, while teammate Rins finished fifth, a tenth of second behind. LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow took sixth.
Finishing eighth behind Petrucci was Maverick Vinales on the second Yamaha, while Alvaro Bautista of Nieto Ducati and Johann Zarco of Tech 3 Yamaha took the last two places in top 10. Taking the last set of points were Pol Espargaro (KTM), Hafizh Syahrin (Tech 3 Yamaha), Tito Rabat (Avintia Ducati), Bradley Smith (KTM) and Franco Morbidelli (Marc VDS Honda).
Dani Pedrosa, who started 20th, had contact with LCR Honda's Takaaki Nakagami and retired early. Other retirements included Aprilia's Scott Redding and Karel Abraham of Nieto Ducati on the first lap, while Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati) and Thomas Luthi (Marc VDS Honda) both fell on the second. Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro retired in the pits in the closing stages of the race.
A brilliant finish for Ducati, the Italian GP results have promoted Dovizioso to fourth in the championship standings even as Marquez continues to lead. Rossi, meanwhile, has moved to second ahead of teammate Vinales. For Lorenzo, the win has helped little as the rider is far 10 on the points table. Will a win make Ducati reconsider retaining Lorenzo or is that a deal done? We should have an answer to that in the following weeks.
