VOL. 55 ISSUE 14 APRIL 10, 2018 P73
This put his last victim, Vina-
les, back to fifth, with Dovi sixth,
half-a-second clear of Rabat,
himself under pressure from
Iannone and impressive top
rookie Hafizh Syahrin (Monster
Yamaha).
Two seconds down, Danilo
Petrucci (Alma Pramac Ducati)
rounded out the top 10, with Pol
Espargaro (KTM), Scott Red-
ding (Aprilia), Takaaki Nakagami,
Franco Morbidelli (both Honda)
and a desperately out-of-sorts
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati) wrapping
up the points.
Aleix Espargaro retired, sec-
ond KTM rider Bradley Smith
crashed out, making (with Pe-
drosa) three non-finishers.
With 38 points, Crutchlow
took over the early champion-
ship lead from Dovizioso (35),
with Zarco on 28, then Vinales
21 and Marquez 20.
19 races there are only two controls,
and not for all the riders. We are just
asking for more controls." There was
a lot of doubt as to whether doping
would actually be productive. The only
victim of testing in the past was Austra-
lian Anthony West, and while it was ac-
cepted that his test failure in 2012 was
the result of a genuine mistake with an
over-the-counter nasal decongestant
rather than any performance enhance-
ment, he was still stripped of results
and banned for a month.
RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY—
AND IT DID
Rain had been expected on Friday, for
the rest of the weekend. It finally ar-
rived, though very lightly and fitfully, on
Saturday, giving MotoGP riders their
first time on wet tires in anger since
the Malaysian GP last year. But it was
a very difficult kind of rain, coming and
going very unpredictably. According
to pole qualifier Jack Miller: "It wasn't
nice to ride. It could be raining at one
corner, then two laps later it would be
raining somewhere else." Fellow front-
row qualifier Dani Pedrosa added: "It
was very light. We have to be ready for
any conditions tomorrow, but it will be
very difficult."
CLEARED
Moto3 title challenger Aron Canet got
away with what appeared to be blatant
aggression when he knocked off
Kazakh rookie Makar Yurchenko on
Friday morning. The pair had clashed
earlier on the lap, when the new guy
slowed the three-time winner. From
the outside, it looked as though Canet
then hung back, and deliberately
dived inside Yurchenko's CIP KTM.
Briefly...
(Above) Aleix
Espargaro
(41) was first
roughed up
by Petrucci
here and then
Marquez, and
finally retired
with engine
failure. Again.
(Left) Andrea
Dovizioso (04)
could only
manage sixth,
after what
was a torrid
weekend for
the Italian.
