2018 FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON REVIEW
P146
MotoGP
defeated Dovi on two separate
occasions, as well as winning in
Catalunya when Dovi tumbled.
Jorge's wins were there and at
the previous Mugello race; then
again brilliantly in Austria, where
he turned the tables on Marquez
in a last-lap shootout.
Who knows what else he might
have accomplished? But he was
spiked by a first-turn crash at
Aragon, after his third consecutive
pole, then more badly hurt when
his Duke locked the back wheel
and threw him in Thailand, with a
still unexplained mechanical failure.
His second of the year, after brake
failure at round one in Qatar.
What could Jorge do on an
even better Ducati next year?
We'll never know. Prematurely
dumped, a move Ducati might
seriously regret, Jorge phoned
Repsol Honda's new-for-this-year
team manager Alberto Puig, who
leapt at the chance of signing
him alongside Marquez.
Valentino Rossi was third in the
championship, a massive tribute
to the 39-year-old's refusal to get
old, and more importantly to ac-
cept that his Yamaha wasn't really
good enough.
It was The Doctor's first sea-
son without a win, apart from two
bleak years with a bum Ducati;
and he went the whole second
half of the season without even a
podium. But he'd done enough
for five more points than his more
erratic Movistar Yamaha team-
mate Vinales, in spite of Maver-
ick's win at Phillip Island.
That broke Yamaha's 25-race
losing streak, the longest in its
history, blamed on an accumula-
tion of small problems stemming
The race of the year, undoubtedly,
was the manic Dutch TT at Assen.
Resembling more a Moto3 race
than MotoGP, it showcased the
best riders in the world at the top of
their game, and hammered home
Marquez's supremacy.
