Official: Maverick Vinales stripped of second place in Qatar MotoGP

Maverick Vinales has lost his shock runner-up finish in Sunday’s Qatar MotoGP due to a post-race tyre pressure penalty.

The Tech3 rider surged from sixth on the grid to sensationally take the race lead from Marc Marquez, before the Ducati star eventually retaliated.

Nonetheless, a delighted Vinales looked to have claimed KTM's first podium of the season - not to mention his first top-ten on the RC16 - until an investigation was announced for low tyre pressure.

The FIM Stewards subsequently confirmed Vinales failed to reach the specified minimum pressure for at least 60% of the race laps and he was thus given the standard 16-second time penalty.

That demotes the Spaniard down to 14th place while moving early race leader Franco Morbidelli up to third behind a Ducati Lenovo one-two for Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia.

Vinales’ penalty was probably the result of five laps he spent in the race lead.

The Tech3 team would have expected Vinales to spend the grand prix battling in hot, dirty air behind other bikes - and set his tyre pressure accordingly.

While riders can receive a dashboard warning from their teams if they are in danger of being under the specified laps, Vinales said before the verdict was announced: 

"I was just looking forward, I didn't have time... I don't care what happens [with the penalty] because we did the second place.”

KTM previously dodged a tyre-pressure penalty in Indonesia last year, when Pedro Acosta kept second place after ‘the loss of pressure during the race was proven to be due to leaking wheel rim.’

However, no such mitigating circumstances were found for Vinales on Sunday.