Ducati’s Lorenzo edges MotoGP champion Marquez in Austria

Jorge Lorenzo has claimed his third victory of the season by defeating future team-mate Marc Marquez in another thriller in Austria to maintain Ducati’s dominance at the Red Bull Ring.

Having won both races since the return of the Spielberg race to the MotoGP calendar, Ducati’s familiar foe of world championship leader Marquez led for large portions of the Austrian race but couldn’t escape the hunting duo of Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso.

With Marquez losing a lead of over one second at the mid-way stage, Lorenzo fended off pressure from his Ducati team-mate to take the fight to the Repsol Honda rider in the closing 10 laps.

Lorenzo and Marquez, set to be team-mates at the factory Honda squad next year, traded overtakes on lap 18 while Dovizioso dropped off the front two suffering with a fading tyre life.

Lorenzo gave Marquez an opportunity to dive back ahead when he ran wide at the tight Turn 3 with three laps to go which set up an almighty tussle between the two Spaniards.

Lorenzo pounced back on the same lap into Turn 9, aggressively forcing Marquez wide, but the reigning world champion returned the favour on the penultimate lap with a block pass at Turn 3 to lead into the final lap showdown.

The Ducati rider used the extra top speed of the GP18 to charge up the inside into the first turn and despite a fightback from Marquez at the tight third corner Lorenzo kept his rival in check to hold on for victory.

Lorenzo’s third win continues Ducati’s victory run in Austria – with three different riders all taking victory across the last three years – with Marquez having to settle for second place for a consecutive Austrian Grand Prix.

In the end, Dovizioso took a distant third place having been just a spectator for the victory fight in the final lap.

Behind the front three, LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow completed a lonely but impressive race to take fourth place as top independent rider comfortably ahead of Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci.

After the self-confessed ‘crisis’ at Yamaha, Valentino Rossi clawed back from qualifying down in 14th place to take sixth – one place better than his 2017 results in Austria – ahead of Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Suzuki’s Alex Rins.

Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Johann Zarco claimed a distant ninth narrowly ahead of Angel Nieto Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista who got the better of Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat.

After a familiar disastrous start, Maverick Vinales clawed his way up to 12th place on the factory Yamaha having dropped outside of the points in the opening laps.

Andrea Iannone was pushed wide early on at Turn 3 to see him struggle to 13th ahead of sole Red Bull KTM rider Bradley Smith as rookie LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami rounded out the points places.

Fellow MotoGP rookie Hifazh Syahrin could only manage 16th place for Tech3 but ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, who faded badly as the race went on, while Pramac Ducati’s Jack Miller completed a frustrating race down in 18th.

Franco Morbidelli (Marc VDS Honda), Scott Redding (Aprilia), Karel Abraham (Angel Nieto Ducat) and Thomas Luthi (Marc VDS Honda) rounded out the finishers in Austria with Xavier Simeon the only non-finisher crashing out early on for Avintia Ducati.

Rossi: It's a combination of engine and electronics

Saturday's unprecedented public apology by Yamaha management to riders Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales caused debate and a little confusion within the MotoGP paddock.

The confusion, also expressed privately by senior management of rival teams, was why a factory that was leading the Teams' World Championship, second in the Riders' Championship and had one machine (the satellite bike of Johann Zarco) on the second row of the grid felt the need to present such an apology.

The reason given by Yamaha was that the 12th and 14th grid places for factory riders Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi warranted such action.

It was certainly a poor performance, Yamaha's worst as a factory team in the dry since Valencia 2007, but the same positions as last year's wet Motegi qualifying. Rossi has also qualified 10th or lower on two previous occasions this season alone, Vinales three times.

A more worrying statistic is Yamaha's 20 (now 21) race losing streak, their worst since 1998.

Drivers' championship 1. Marc Marquez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 2. Valentino Rossi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 3. Jorge Lorenzo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 4. Andrea Dovizioso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 5. Maverick Vinales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 6. Danilo Petrucci . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 7. Johann Zarco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 8. Cal Crutchlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 9. Andrea Iannone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 10. Dani Pedrosa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 11. Alex Rins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 12. Jack Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 13. Alvaro Bautista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 14. Tito Rabat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 15. Pol Espargaro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 16. Hafizh Syahrin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 17. Franco Morbidelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 18. Aleix Espargaro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 19. Bradley Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 20. Scott Redding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 21. Takaaki Nakagami . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 22 .Mika Kallio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 23. Karel Abraham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Constructors' championship 1. Honda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 2. Ducati . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 3. Yamaha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 4. Suzuki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 5. KTM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 6. Aprilia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27