Andrea Dovizioso won a thrilling battle for supremacy for Ducati at the Red Bull ring on Sunday afternoon. Fans were kept on the edge of their seats as the Italian rider fought it out with the Repsol Honda of Marc Marquez, eventually crossing the line victorious despite several last minute lunges from Marquez.
โAndrea did a really fantastic race, both from a tactical and sporting point of view, and his win came in an incredible manner, especially in the last two corners," said a very proud Luigi Dall'Igna (Ducati Corse General Manager). "I'm still full of adrenaline! Well done to Dovi, who did a perfect race, and it was a good job also by Jorge, who led for the first eleven laps and finished the GP with a good fourth place.โ
Ar the start of the 28 lap event, it was actually Dovi's teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, who shot into the lead and held the charging Marquez at bay for several laps. However, as Marquez eventually came through for the overtake, Dovizioso took advantage of the slip stream and passed the pair of them for the lead. From that moment on it was a two horse fight between the Ducati and the Honda with places changes constantly.
Marquez would make his move at the two left handers, seven and eight, and would fly past the Ducati with ease, however, the Ducati had the straight line speed to get past the Honda and Dovi soon became wise to Marquez's moves and began taking a tighter line into seven, stopping the Spaniard from slipping through.
You could see the pressure was on Marquez to take his third win in succession as he went wide at one stage and the lunges on the final lap that, unfortunately for him, failed to get the job done.
Meanwhile, behind them, the two Yamaha's made mistakes by going too wide into turn one and were unable to recover the positions lost.
"We had anticipated that this would be a challenging race, that would be hard on the tyres. We decided to go with the hard rear spec this morning, but in the end this didnยt pay off as we had hoped," said Yamaha's Massimo Meregalli. "The start of the race went well: both Maverick and Valentino were able to compete at the front of the field, but after 10 laps they started to suffer from a lack of grip from the rear tyre."
"It was unfortunate that this cost us some valuable points in the championship challenge, but the riders did well to hold on to sixth and seventh place and bring home the best results possible under these circumstances. The team will work hard to find a solution for the issue before the race at Silverstone, at the private test in Misano next weekend."
Lorenzo, who led for several laps, dropped back to third, then fourth as the second Repsol Honda of Dani Pedrosa flew past him for the final podium finish.
GP of Austria โ Race classification:
1. Andrea DOVIZIOSO, Ducati Team - 39'43.323
2. Marc MARQUEZ, Repsol Honda Team - +0.176
3. Dani PEDROSA, Repsol Honda Team - +2.661
4. Jorge LORENZO, Ducati Team - +6.663
5. Johann ZARCO, Monster Yamaha Tech 3 - +7.262
6. Maverick VIรALES, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - +7.447
7. Valentino ROSSI, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - +8.995
8. Alvaro BAUTISTA, Pull&Bear Aspar Team - +14.515
9. Loris BAZ, Reale Avintia Racing - +19.620
10. Mika KALLIO, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing - +19.766
11. Andrea IANNONE, Team SUZUKI ECSTAR - +20.101
12. Scott REDDING, OCTO Pramac Racing - +25.523
13. Aleix ESPARGARO, Aprilia Racing Team Gresini - +26.700
14. Karel ABRAHAM, Pull&Bear Aspar Team - +27.321
15. Cal CRUTCHLOW, LCR Honda - +28.096
16. Alex RINS, Team SUZUKI ECSTAR - +32.912
17. Hector BARBERA, Reale Avintia Racing - +34.112
18. Bradley SMITH, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing - +36.423
19. Tito RABAT, EG 0,0 Marc VDS - +42.404
20. Sam LOWES, Aprilia Racing Team Gresini - +52.492
MotoGP World Standing 2017:
1. Marc MARQUEZ, Honda - 174
2. Andrea DOVIZIOSO, Ducati - 158
3. Maverick VIรALES, Yamaha - 150
4. Valentino ROSSI, Yamaha - 141
5. Dani PEDROSA, Honda - 139
6. Johann ZARCO, Yamaha - 99
7. Jorge LORENZO, Ducati - 79
8. Jonas FOLGER, Yamaha - 77
9. Cal CRUTCHLOW, Honda - 76
10. Danilo PETRUCCI, Ducati - 75
11. Alvaro BAUTISTA, Ducati - 52
12. Aleix ESPARGARO, Aprilia - 43
13. Jack MILLER, Honda - 43
14. Loris BAZ, Ducati - 38
15. Scott REDDING, Ducati - 37
16. Andrea IANNONE, Suzuki - 33
17. Karel ABRAHAM, Ducati - 25
18. Tito RABAT, Honda - 23
19. Pol ESPARGARO, KTM - 21
20. Hector BARBERA, Ducati - 21
21. Alex RINS, Suzuki - 12
22. Bradley SMITH, KTM - 8
23. Michele PIRRO, Ducati - 7
24. Mika KALLIO, KTM - 6
25. Sam LOWES, Aprilia - 2
26. Sylvain GUINTOLI Suzuki - 1
