Here Are The Winners And Losers From The Opening Night In Qatar

There’s a saying in MotoGP: “Always expect the unexpected.” And that’s what happened once again as Maverick Vinales ran away with the victory in the opening round of the 2021 MotoGP season. Yep, Vinales. On his Yamaha YZR-M1. Ran away a comfortable victor. From the record-shattering Ducati Desmosedicis. What the hell happened here?!

Biggest Winner: Maverick ‘Top Gun’ Vinales
Proving doubters wrong, Maverick Vinales rode a superb race from start to finish. None of the usual opening lap dramas for him this time round. He managed to get a decent start and systematically picked off each one of his rivals around the Losail circuit. And once he got to the front of the pack, he was also able to break away from the slipstream of the trailing Ducatis, who were the favourites for the win. Vinales has started off the season strongly and let’s hope that this season, he finally lives up to the expectations that Yamaha has had from him for the past four years.

Other Winners
Suzukis
It is the umpteenth time that we have seen the Suzuki boys come strong in the latter half of the races. The GSX-RR really manages its tyres well in the latter stages of the Grand Prix, which gives a tremendous advantage to both Alex Rins and defending champion Joan Mir to fight their way to the podium if not the victory. At a track where straight line speed is extremely crucial, both Rins and Mir managed to pull off some amazing overtaking moves on the sweet handling GSX-RR.

While Rins did most of the damage in the initial stages of the race, it was the champ who almost managed to bag the podium. He became a bit too zealous and overshot his braking marker just by a fraction too late, enough to run wide and let those blisteringly fast Ducatis zoom by. Nevertheless, from their lowly starting positions, finishing fourth and sixth was ultimately a good day in the office.

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Johann Zarco
Fastest man on a MotoGP bike ever, that’s a nice title to own, isn’t it. Johann Zarco’s FP4 shenanigans saw him clock 362.4kmph, the fastest speed ever recorded by a MotoGP bike in a straight line. But that was quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. What should impress the bosses over at Bologna was the fact that the Frenchman was the silver lining in what turned out to be a race to forget for Ducati. Zarco bided his time behind the factory Ducati of polesitter Pecco Bagnaia, after dispatching Pecco’s teammate and hopeful race winner, Jack Miller, quite early in the race.

As Vinales made his way past him, Zarco tried sticking with the Spaniard. Ultimately, the precise Yamaha and a determined Vinales were untouchable, Zarco ultimately had to settle for second. For a moment, it felt as though he would finish third but Mir’s last corner goof-up allowed him to capitalise and make the guys over at Bologna a little pleased with the overall result.

Biggest Loser: Factory Ducatis
The Ducatis have always worked brilliantly in Losail. The kilometre-long straight allows them to really open up the beastly heart of the Desmosedici and zoom past every other bike on the grid as if they were some Moto2 bike. They were the favourites for the win. Jack Miller was very impressive in the preseason tests and Bagnaia was the first man to lap the circuit in under 1 minute 53 seconds, clinching a superb pole on Saturday.

Sunday was disastrous to say the least, especially for Miller. He never looked like he had the pace to win the Grand Prix, struggling to keep up with his Ducati brethren. Even Vinales and the Suzuki got past him quite easily. He was trying to nurse his tyres for a late race charge but to no avail as his rear tyre was completely shot. Ultimately, Miller could only finish ninth, seven seconds behind race winner Vinales. Bagnaia managed to salvage a little by finishing third, thanks to Mir’s mistake, but even he faced the same rear tyre grip issue.

What hurt the Ducatis the most was the strong headwind down the main straight. This really curbed the top speed advantage that they had over the field, losing out nearly 20-25kmph in the process. On occasions, the Yamahas and Suzukis were able to keep them honest and not lose too much ground down the straight. Hopefully, Ducati can perform better next week as we have a double header at the very same track.

Other Losers
Petronas Yamahas
The only reason why Fabio Quartararo isn’t added here is because he did come strong in the last couple of laps and earned a respectable fifth-placed finish. He could have had a better maiden outing with the factory team but it was miles better than what his old team managed to achieve. The satellite Petronas Yamaha outfit’s performance was shockingly poor. Last year’s championship runner-up and one of the main title contenders for this year, Franco Morbidelli, never made an impression in the race. The Italian had a miserable start and continued to lose positions throughout the race, finishing second-last.

His teammate and nine-times World Champion Valentino Rossi didn’t have it any better. Sure, Rossi rocketed off the line and was in the best position to challenge the Ducatis on the opening lap. Ultimately, the old dog simply faded away and ended the race in twelfth. This was not what the way ‘The Doctor’ would have hoped to start his 26th season in MotoGP. Can these two Italians conjure up some potion to improve their performance in five-days time for round two? We’ll have to watch.

KTMs
A quiet night for the Austrian bikemaker as only three of its four riders finished the race, the best-placed one was in 13th. In fact, Danilo Petrucci never made it past turn two in his first race for KTM, washing the front end of his RC16 away. Qatar might turn out to be a difficult venue for KTM even for round two, as the riders simply didn’t feel up to pace in the desert. Let’s hope it gets back to promising times when the racing circus heads to Europe for round three at Portimao, Portugal. And if last year is anything to go by, expect KTM, and especially local-hero Miguel Oliveira, to be really, really strong there.