Dovizioso scorches to emotional home win in Mugello MotoGP

Andrea Dovizioso took an emotional and historic home win for himself and his Ducati team in the Moto Grand Prix of Mugello, fending of Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales to move up to second place in the world championship

Dovizioso had started the race on the front row in P3. Rossi blasted off the line to take the lead initially, as Jorge Lorenzo lept from 7th on the grid to lead the race in the early stages before Rossi and Vinales repassed him, then followed by Dovizioso as Lorenzo’s challenge faded. Despite injuring himself in a motocross accident just ten days ago, Rossi was leading but Vinales soon got past his teammate. ‘Dovi’ took P2 from Rossi on the sixth lap and the lead trio were joined by Pramac rider Danilo Petrucci.

These four left the others in their wake. Marc Marquez was never a factor, battling with the satellite Ducati of Alvaro Bautista for the majority of the race. At the front, Vinales was just two tenths ahead of Dovizioso at half distance and with ten laps to go the Ducati man hit the front for the first time. He built up a lead of 0.7s as Petrucci passed Rossi and then Vinales–as the Spaniard ran wide at the final corner. This allowed Dovizioso a breather as Vinales spent several laps behind the Pramac Ducati.

Rossi fell away in 4th and with four laps to go Vinales finally got back past Petrucci, but Dovizioso was over a second ahead of the Yamaha and despite Vinales best efforts he could not close up. Dovizioso crossed the line 1.281s ahead of Vinales to take his third career victory and incredibly his first win in the dry. His previous wins at Donington 2010 and Malaysia 2016 were both in the wet. The Italian also moved up four spots in the standings to be second, 26 points behind Vinales. It was a thrilling race and an incredibly emotional result for Dovizioso who had rode with a bad illness throughout the whole race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full race results courtesy of motogp.com

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