VOL. 53 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 18, 2016 P91
Espargaro had lost touch after
lap 16, and fell back into the
clutches of his teammate Mav-
erick Vinales, who had decided
after a bad start to preserve his
tires for the other end of the
race. The plan worked, and
while Espargaro resisted man-
fully and it took a couple of laps
to make a pass stick, by the 19th
Suzuki sixth to Dovi's fourth
(Crutchlow between them) but
got a flier off the line while Dovi
was baulked.
Once he'd got by, the Ducati
rider set to work on catching Lo-
renzo, around a second ahead. It
was a remorseless but very gradual
process, resolved only when Lo-
renzo crashed in front of him.
(Aoyama, Barbera, Hernandez,
Smith and Jones) took the soft
option. There was even less
variety with rear choice, all going
for the soft Michelin, except for
Hernandez (medium).
Dovizioso thus inherited sec-
ond. He'd spent the first five laps
stuck behind Aleix Espargaro,
who had qualified the Ecstar
