In view of the first tests of the off-season which marked a more than encouraging debut in MotoGP on a Ducati Pramac, the reigning Moto2 World Champion Bagnaia hoped for much better from this first meeting at Qatar. But the tests carried out on this same Losail route had alerted him to the difficulties to come. And they actually showed up. Average qualifications forced him to share the fifth row with Red and Lorenzo. A quality company. But Pecco also discovered peloton racing with a MotoGP…
On this occasion, he was able to see that the games in the elite melee had nothing to envy of those in the other Grand Prix categories. Because it was during one of them that he left his last hopes of bringing back a good result from his first meeting at this level of the competition.
He explains his setbacks thus: “ I started well with a line taken at the start which allowed me to gain positions. In the first corner, however, Petrucci was overtaken very aggressively, and I can't remember by whom. But then he hit me, breaking the right fender of my motorcycle. I tried but it was impossible to continue at high speed. However, we worked well and the first laps were important to understand how the others drive ».
We will recall that if bagnaia found himself without a wing, his teammate Miller was forced to go without a saddle, an essential accessory which had become disconnected from his Ducati. The Australian also had to abandon so that the Pramac team failed in Qatar.
MotoGP, Qatar J3: classification
| 1 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 42'36.902 |
| 2 | 93 | Marc MÁRQUEZ | Honda | +0.023 |
| 3 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | +0.320 |
| 4 | 42 | Alex RINS | Suzuki | +0.457 |
| 5 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | +0.600 |
| 6 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ducati | +2.320 |
| 7 | 12 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | +2.481 |
| 8 | 36 | Joan Mir | Suzuki | +5.088 |
| 9 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Honda | +7.406 |
| 10 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARÓ | Aprilia | +9.636 |
| 11 | 21 | Frank MORBIDELLI | Yamaha | +9.647 |
| 12 | 44 | Pol ESPARGARÓ | KTM | +12.774 |
| 13 | 99 | Jorge Lorenzo | Honda | +14.307 |
| 14 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Aprilia | +14.349 |
| 15 | 5 | johann zarco | KTM | +15.093 |
| 16 | 20 | Fabio QUARTARARO | Yamaha | +15.905 |
| 17 | 88 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | KTM | +16.377 |
| 18 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | Ducati | +22.972 |
| 19 | 53 | Tito RABAT | Ducati | +23.039 |
| 20 | 55 | Hafiz Syahrin | KTM | +43.242 |
| Not Classified | ||||
| 38 | Bradley SMITH | Aprilia | 2 lapses | |
| 43 | Jack Miller | Ducati | 10 lapses | |
| 63 | Francesco Bagnaia | Ducati | 13 lapses |
