SCARPERIA: Spain’s Jorge Lorenzo claimed his first MotoGP win in a year and a half as he led a Ducati one-two in the Italian team’s home grand prix on Sunday while world championship leader Marc Marquez crashed and failed to score.

Lorenzo surged ahead of pole-sitter Valentino Rossi into the first turn at the Mugello circuit and quickly established a comfortable lead which held on till the end with Italian Ducati team-mate Andrea Dovizioso finishing second, more than six seconds behind, and Rossi completing the podium on a Yamaha, making the 39-year-old great the first rider to score more than 5,000 points in the top category.

The win ended a long drought for three-time MotoGP champion Lorenzo, who has struggled since joining the factory team at the start of 2017 and whose last victory was for Yamaha in Valencia at the end of 2016.

“It’s a special to win here with Ducati,” said Lorenzo, who had retired from two of the first four races this season in Qatar and Spain.

Marquez had just passed Rossi for second when he lost control of his bike and ended up crashing into the gravel four laps into the 23-lap race and struggling to restart his Honda.

Marquez, bidding for his fourth straight win this season, finished 16th but still remains top of the championship standings after five races.

Former seven-time world MotoGP champion Rossi moved up to second place overall and is now 23 points adrift of Marquez. Maverick Vinales, who finished eighth, is third, 28 points back.

“It was a very difficult race, but we expected it, I struggled a lot especially at the front,” said Rossi. “But in the end what I did was the right choice, because I managed to push in the final but keeping [Andrea] Iannone at a distance. It was my goal to return to the podium at Mugello, I’m very happy.”

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2018