traction control, but none in turn
one. I crashed because when I
closed the throttle it stayed wide
open. I went into that corner 60
kilometers faster than the lap
before."
Stefan Bradl on the second
Aprilia also fell, as well as Loris
Baz and Yonny Hernandez.
MOTO2
LAUDABLE LUTHI
DOES IT DESERT STYLE
Things went wrong for the ill-
favored production-powered
middle class even before the
lights went off—triggered, said
some riders, by a long delay
then a premature flicker.
All but two of the nine riders
on the front two rows moved at
least slightly, Franco Morbidelli
(EG-VDS Kalex) by quite a lot.
Then they roared off.
One rider who hadn't moved
was pole qualifier Jonas Folger
on the Dynavolt Kalex and his
timing meant he had a lead of
better than a second at the end
of the first lap, from Federal Oils
Kalex's Sam Lowes, Thomas Lu-
thi's Garage Plus Kalex, Takaaki
Nakagami (Idemitsu Kalex), San-
dro Cortese (Dynavolt Kalex),
Morbidelli and the rest.
The other was Luthi, and he
would win the race after an ulti-
mately quite unnecessary battle
with Morbidelli.
Folger was the architect of his
own downfall, slipping off on the
third lap.
For the rest, misfortune came
from a shambolic series of deci-
sions from Race Direction.
Before the first lap was done,
Lowes, Alex Rins (Paginas Ama-
rillas Kalex), defending champi-
on Johann Zarco (Ajo Kalex) and
Marcel Schrotter (AGR Kalex)
were given ride-through penal-
ties, Zarco running into pit lane
before completing the lap.
Two minutes later, the same
penalty was applied to Nakagami
and back-of-the-grid man Robin
Mulhauser.
This took the cream out of
the front battle, leaving Luthi
and Morbidelli to fight it out to
the end. They swapped several
times until Luthi seized the lead
finally at the start of the final lap.
But by then—belatedly—Mor-
bidelli had become the latest
victim of the red-light rumpus.
He and Cortese (lying fourth on
the track) had also been found
MOTOGP
2016 MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1 / MARCH 20, 2016
LOSAIL INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT / DOHA, QATAR
P46
Thomas Luthi (12)
was a cool head
in Qatar and won
an ultimately
unnecessary battle
with Morbidelli.
