This Grand Prix of Qatar was hell on earth for a KTM manufacturer who had his wings clipped at Losail. In Moto3, he suffered Honda domination, in Moto2, he played to assert Kalex and in MotoGP, the RC16 only had failures due to an incompatibility of mood with the Magneti Marelli electronic box. All this under the eyes of sports director Pit Beirer who remains philosophical: “ fortunately we also do motocross otherwise I would be depressed » he declared to speedweek while packing up his things to send them to Argentina!
An Argentina which will be the next meeting on the calendar. In three weeks. But upon arrival at Termas de Rio Hondo, we will have to work on the RC16: “ the equipment is leaving for Argentina and we won't be able to do anything before April 6. We had two electronic problems at Pol. We exchanged everything electronic. But in the race, the same thing happened as Saturday. We are in the process of resolving the issues. Until now we have absolutely no understanding of what happened. The situation is boring. We weren't able to do much testing due to Pol's injury in January. Additionally, Pol completely destroyed two motorcycles here this weekend after crashes. The frame was missing 2 centimeters on the steering column. The rest of the rooms looked much worse. Thank God we were able to save the engines. The mechanics worked all night on Sunday. But the only bike with the electronic problem, we suffered until Sunday. It's frustrating. » So, it was better to throw in the towel...
As for Bradley Smith : " he started well then he fell in the rankings due to a front tire problem. Overall, our performance here this year was as sad as that of 2017. And no one wants it to be like that. Never again ».
See you for a revenge in Argentina. It will be recalled that Tech3 will be, in 2019, the satellite team of KTM, for a period of three years.
MotoGP #QatarGP Losail J.3: Ranking
| 1 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 42'34.654 |
| 2 | 93 | Marc Márquez | Honda | +0.027 |
| 3 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | +0.797 |
| 4 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | +2.881 |
| 5 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ducati | +3.821 |
| 6 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | +3.888 |
| 7 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | Honda | +4.621 |
| 8 | 5 | johann zarco | Yamaha | +7.112 |
| 9 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki | +12.957 |
| 10 | 43 | Jack Miller | Ducati | +14.594 |
| 11 | 53 | Tito RABAT | Ducati | +15.181 |
| 12 | 21 | Frank MORBIDELLI | Honda | +16.274 |
| 13 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | Ducati | +19.788 |
| 14 | 55 | Hafiz Syahrin | Yamaha | +20.299 |
| 15 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | Ducati | +23.287 |
| 16 | 12 | Thomas LUTHI | Honda | +24.189 |
| 17 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Honda | +24.554 |
| 18 | 38 | Bradley SMITH | KTM | +31.704 |
| 19 | 41 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | +34.712 |
| 20 | 45 | Scott REDDING | Aprilia | +37.641 |
| 21 | 10 | Xavier SIMEON | Ducati | +46.706 |
| Not Classified | ||||
| 44 | Pol Espargaró | KTM | 7 lapses | |
| 42 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | 10 lapses | |
| 99 | Jorge Lorenzo | Ducati | 10 lapses |
