Brilliant Quartararo takes second win for Yamaha in Qatar

Fabio Quartararo made it two from two for Yamaha in Qatar, as the French rider made a brilliant comeback through the field to take his first win for the factory team. 

It was a chaotic race from start to finish and you would have been correct in thinking it was a Moto3 race at times. 

The action from the early laps was non stop with overtakes every lap. A constant however, was the incredible ride from Jorge Martin who kept the lead until five laps remaining. 

Like Quartararo’s team-mate Maverick Vinales, both Yamaha riders were relegated from their front two row starts down to ninth and 11th thanks to the impressive launches from the entire third row and others. 

Aleix Espargaro, Alex Rins, Joan Mir and the fast starting Miguel Oliveria who was fourth by turn one from 12th, all made their way through. 

But much like his team-mate last week, Quartararo measured his attack through the pack and gradually started closing the two Pramac riders down. 

Once up to third place, Quartararo spent several laps behind fellow Frenchman Johann Zarco before making his way into second at turn ten. 

The 21 year-old wasted no time in catching Martin, and got passed with six laps to go, but was immediately overtaken on the front straight by the rookie.

However, it was only four corners later that the race winning overtake happened, as the #20 started to increase his lead and therefore could not suffer the same fate of being slipstreamed by the Spaniard. 

Behind him, the battle intensified as Vinales was keen to get through with his team-mate but was unable to do so. 

Vinales ran slightly wide at turn one on the final lap whilst in fourth, which allowed Rins to get passed and keep the place. 

That result means the two Monster Energy Yamaha riders are tied on 36 points and second in the standings. 

This means the new championship leader is Zarco, who managed to come away from Doha with another second place after passing his rookie team-mate with two corners to go. 

Martin tried to outdrag the former double Moto2 champion down the pit straight but just ran out of time. 

It was a stunning performance by both riders and resulted in Martin getting his maiden podium in just his second MotoGP Grand Prix. 

Sixth was Francesco Bagnaia who had an uncharacteristically poor start losing sixth positions but regrouped to be as high as third at one stage.  

Seventh was Mir who had an eventful race as he had contact with Jack Miller twice. 

The first collision came as Mir tried a late lunge past the Australian with 12 laps remaining, but later that same lap was where the major incident came.

Mir ran wide coming onto the finish straight and came back onto the racing line as the pair hit each other. 

Both riders stayed aboard their machine and no damage occurred, but Miller was not impressed and had time to first gesticulate towards Mir and still overtake Vinales by turn one. 

Eighth was the impressive Brad Binder who came from 18th on the grid to finish as the top KTM rider. 

Rounding out the top ten were Miller for Ducati in what can only be seen as another disappointing result, while Aleix Espargaro was tenth for Aprilia.