Andrea Dovizioso stormed his way to the third Premier Class victory of his career in front of his loving home fans as fan-favourite and home hero Valentino Rossi finished 4th.
Dovizioso had an okay start but he picked up after a couple of laps into the race, using all of the extra horses in his Ducati to cruise past Viñales at the end of the home straight. Dovi, who is suffering from food poisoning, didn’t look back from that moment and made his way up into the second place in the World Championship standings.
Maverick Viñales had a poor start to the race but the championship leader fought back and finished a strong second, extended his championship lead.
Valentino Rossi had the dream start in front of the Mugello faithful but over the course of the race, his challenge started to fade away due to unknown reasons.
Unlike the Ducatis and the Yamahas, the Hondas were struggling in the race with Marc Marquez, the highest placed Honda finishing a low 6th. Disaster struck for the Japanese team on the last lap as Dani Pedrosa slid into Cal Crutchlow and both the Honda riders went down, blowing the opportunity for getting some points on the board.
Jorge Lorenzo had a startling first half of the race, fighting for the lead at multiple occasions but as the race progressed, Lorenzo’s Desmocedici could not give him the performance he desired. Ducati’s wild card rider for the weekend, Michele Pirro qualified well at P7 and the test rider took his GP17 to a respectable 9th place.French sensation Johann Zarco unusually had a pretty quiet race and the Tech 3 rider finished 7th.
Andrea Iannone had a very strong race aboard his Suzuki, climbing up 9 places from 16th to finish P7. A major reason for the same was that Michelin bought revised tyres to Mugello; which had a harder front lining and this helped the Italian rider get the crucial front end feel which he was missing from the first race.
rider(s) Of the day
In the end, the best performers of the day for me were Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci and Aspar Ducati’s Álvaro Bautista.
Danilo Petrucci – Pramac Ducati
Petrucci had qualified in the front row but he exceeded track limits at Turn 5 and so he had to start 9th in front of his home fans. This didn’t hamper the determined Italian’s confidence and he continued his momentum in the race. Petrucci had a flying start and made up quite a lot of positions and during the race, he made the most of his ideally performing Desmocedici and the drop of form of Lorenzo and Rossi to grab a fine 3rd place. Petrucci has already had a podium in MotoGP but this one was even more special as this was his first podium finish in the dry and he did it in front of 100,000 fellow compatriots.
Álvaro Bautista – Aspar ducati
Álvaro Bautista also had a brilliant weekend, with the Aspar rider reaching Q2 after some fast times in the practice sessions. Bautista did not disappoint in qualifying, being classified in 8th place at the end of qualifying. Raceday was even better as Bautista silently sliced his way up the order. The Spanish rider had a long battle with fellow compatriot Marc Marquez and it the end, it was the Desmocedici of Bautista which proved to be better than the Honda.
Both of these Independent Riders enjoyed a fantastic weekend and so did the Italian fans, with all the winners of the races of Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP being Italian, which comes in as a treat.
With this win, Dovizioso becomes the first Italian rider to win the Italian GP on an Italian bike since 1974. In the next race at Catalunya, we will find out whether Rossi will be able to fight back or will Viñales run away with the World Title.
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None of the media used in this article belong to me. Credits to MotoGP.com