San Marino (AFP)
Italian Franco Morbidelli won his first MotoGP victory at the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday but his French teammate Fabio Quartararo retired with a fall and lost the lead in the provisional championship standings.
This is the first motorcycle supreme victory for the young Italian, 25, a pure product of the "VR Academy" of legendary Italian champion Valentino Rossi.
The latter, seven-time world champion in the premier category, is still running at 41 and finished 4th on Sunday after hanging on to 2nd place for a long time.
“I am overwhelmed and I can only thank everyone,” said Morbidelli.
"First there is + Vale +", Rossi's nickname.
"I owe him everything and to have the chance to run with him is a blessing. But I really wanted to beat him to show him that he made a good choice by placing his trust in me," said the native of Rome, who now lives in Tavullia, the village of Rossi near Misano.
"A podium with him today would have been a perfect day for the Academy", however regretted the one who wore a helmet in Misano evoking the fight against racism and the film "Do the right thing" by Spike Lee.
"Today I did + the right thing +", he quipped.
Morbidelli, whose mother is Brazilian, and Rossi could also be teammates next season.
Fabio Quartararo is to take Rossi's place in the Yamaha factory team and the Italian legend could swap with him in the Yamaha-SRT satellite team, a possibility he estimated this weekend to be "99" % ".
The 2nd in the race on Sunday, Francesco "Pecco" Bagnaia (Ducati-Pramac) is also a pupil of master Rossi.
He also recorded Sunday at 23 his best result in MotoGP for his return to the track after missing the previous two events with a broken leg.
"As soon as I saw that my leg was holding on, I thought I could do a good result," he said.
The bad deal of the day is for Fabio Quartararo.
Still leading the championship before this 6th round, he now finds himself 2nd, 6 points behind the Italian Andrea Dovizisio (Ducati), 7th Sunday.
Winner of the first two races of the season, the young Frenchman, 20, is clearly marking time with already poor results in the two previous Grand Prix in Austria.
On Sunday, he completely lost the footrests, missing his start and then falling twice, the first time in the 7th lap while he was back in 4th, and a second in the 20th, forcing him to retire.
- Very tight championship -
Dovizioso, 34, has won only one race since the start of the season but is more consistent which allows him to now be the leader after having finished three times in the last three years on the second step of the final podium.
The first 6 of the championship are currently held in 18 points.
The absence of the Spaniard Marc Marquez, six-time world champion and title holder, injured during the first Grand Prix of the season, turned the situation upside down and whetted the appetites of many drivers.
The 3rd in the race, the Spaniard Joan Mir (Suzuki), 23, also climbed for the first time in his career on Sunday on the podium of a MotoGP event and suddenly finds himself 4th in the championship standings.
“All the bikes are very close but now we know that we are with the best,” he said.
By stealing 3rd place from Rossi in the last laps, he deprived him of what would have been the 200th podium of his career, which is more in front of his home crowd.
As a consolation prize, his half-brother, Luca Marini, won the Moto2 race on Sunday.
For the first time since the start of the season, a limited number of spectators have been admitted to attend the race while all those organized since the start of the season have been behind closed doors due to the coronavirus pandemic .
© 2020 AFP