MOTOGP
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1/MARCH 23, 2014
LOSAIL CIRCUIT/LOSAIL, QATAR
P46
idea," he said.
Pedrosa was satisfied with a
well-judged third at a track he has
never liked.
The battle for fourth lasted un-
til the end, with Dovizioso hold-
ing it for the first half of the race,
then Espargaro finding his way
through and staying there. For
the Ducati rider, still suffering
understeer, the better news was
that improvements so far had
halved the gap to the leader com-
pared with last year.
New Marlboro Ducati team-
mate Cal Crutchlow had crashed
twice in practice, and had a fairly
torrid race, sticking with the pre-
vious two with great difficulty af-
ter an electronic glitch early on
that knocked him off the timing
SAVE OF THE
WEEKEND
This has to go to Valentino Rossi, whose fighting
return in testing was underlined by his fighting second
in the race. True, he did get beaten by Marc Marquez,
but the salvation was to his reputation, which was
pretty tarnished after his Ducati doldrums, a pretty
moderate return to Yamaha, then the seemingly des-
perate dumping of long-time crew chief/legend Jerry
Burgess.
Mind you, Rossi was also second last year in Qatar.
Valentino Rossi was strong in the opening round.
Aleix Espargaro (41)
was the revelation
of the majority
of the practice
sessions, but he was
never a factor in the
race. After all the
crashes, he ended
up fourth and ahead
of Dovizioso (04).
