MOTOGP
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1/MARCH 29, 2015
LOSAIL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT/LOSAIL QATAR
P64
a close battle for seventh from
Monster Yamaha teammates
Smith and Pol Espargaro. Her-
nandez dropped off the back for
tenth, and likewise 11th-placed
Aleix Espargaro, in an unexpect-
edly impressive Suzuki debut.
Petrucci's Ducati was a lone
12th; Scott Redding's factory
Honda debut on the Estrella
Galicia 0.0/Marc VDS bike left
him a disappointed 13th.
Class rookie Maverick Vinales
on the other Suzuki emerged
victorious over top Open fin-
ishers—Avintia Ducati's Hector
Barbera and Athina Forward
Yamaha's Stefan Bradl. All three
had passed Nicky Hayden's
Aspar Honda, fading in the late
stages with electronic problems.
"I had a decent ride going,
considering where we've been
all week and through testing,"
Hayden said. "I was able to make
up a couple of positions and
Nicky Hayden's
new production
Honda is an
improvement
from last year,
but electrical
problems had
the former World
Champion fading
back in the pack.
was doing quite good... was the
first Open bike for a long time. I
pushed really hard trying to catch
Redding, and he was coming
back to me at times and I was
hoping to get on the back of him,
but we used up a lot of tire.
"Everybody had a big drop in
tires here, but we had struggled
a lot with electronics when the
tire did go off. The bike was
cutting a lot, even when I had it
straight up and down. The team
