Maverick Vinales scored his and Yamaha’s first victory of 2019 in the Dutch TT at Assen, beating championship leader Marc Marquez.
Vinales wrestled the lead away from Marquez in the latter stages of the race, despite struggling with increased wind levels that caused both he and fellow Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo massive stability problems.
Running fifth in the early stages, the Yamaha man was forced to follow Marquez for most of the race as he struggled to find a way round the Honda’s superior straight line speed. He then pounced on a mistake from the reigning MotoGP champion at Turn 1 to take second, before focussing his sights on Quartararo’s lead.
He took the lead at around two-thirds distance when he drove past the Frenchman as he was forced to roll off the throttle due to his instability problem on the approach to Turn 6, Marquez following through a few corners later.
While Marquez kept Vinales honest to the flag, the Yamaha was never to be headed and crossed the line 4.8 seconds clear of Marquez.
Pole-man Quartararo had to settle for third as he dropped back significantly from the leading duo for his second consecutive podium, five seconds clear of Andrea Dovizioso.
The Ducati rider came under intense pressure from team-mate Danilo Petrucci, Joan Mir, who had dropped back from second following an early error, and the second Petronas SRT Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli in the closing laps as he began to struggle for speed.
Both Petrucci and Mir took turns to lead the group, but were unable to stay ahead of Dovizioso and later dropped back.
Morbidelli managed to pass both for fifth in the final couple of laps, Petrucci coming home sixth while Mir dropped back to eighth behind Cal Crutchlow’s LCR Honda after losing a huge amount of time with a mistake.
Jack Miller struggled for speed all race and finished a distant ninth on his Pramac Ducati GP19, while Andrea Iannone salvaged a top ten result for Aprilia after a disappointing qualifying where he failed to capitalise on his strong practice pace.
Alex Rins crashed out from the lead just a few laps into the 26-lap contest when he tucked the front heading into Turn 9 while heading a Suzuki 1-2. The Spaniard had looked fast throughout the weekend and looked set to make a break in the lead before his crash.
Valentino Rossi’s dreadful weekend also came to a head early on as he suffered a fearsome crash with Takaaki Nakagami at Turn 8, the pair going off at high speed into the gravel. Both riders were thankfully OK following the incident.
Marquez now extends his lead in the championship to 44 over Dovizioso heading to the German GP at the Sachsenring next weekend.
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