The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team were unlucky to see Valentino Rossi and Maverick Viñales retire out of a promising fifth and third place respectively at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya due to a multiple rider collision. The team-mates were uninjured, but the incident ended their Catalunya challenge with a double NC result.
Rossi started from fourth on the grid and found himself in fifth place through the first corners, before getting into a battle with Jorge Lorenzo and Danilo Petrucci. He was briefly in seventh position, but the Italian is known for not going down without a fight. He was back up to fifth a little more than halfway through the second lap, when disaster struck in Turn 10.
The Doctor reacted quickly in an effort to avoid a multiple-rider incident, but he was still clipped by the sliding bike of a rival, causing him to crash. He rode his bike back to the team garage but was forced to retire from the race.
Following yesterday‘s Race Direction penalty, Viñales had to start from P6. He had already mentioned he would use the setback as extra motivation, and he did exactly that. The home hero had a brilliant launch, arriving at the first corner in sixth place but cunningly moved up to fourth as he flicked his bike left and right in Turn 2 and 3.
He rode an aggressive opening lap to cross the finish line the first time in second place but had to let Marc Marquez pass at the start of lap 2. The Yamaha rider was looking to retaliate, but his race ended prematurely when he was taken out by one of the bikes involved in a collision of two other riders in Turn 10.
Today’s unlucky double NC result means Rossi stays in fifth position in the championship standings with a 68-point gap to first, whereas Viñales moves down from eighth to eleventh in the rankings, with a 100-point margin to the top. Yamaha is now third in the constructor standings, gaining a place, whilst Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP drops one position to fourth in the team classification.
The team will be back at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya tomorrow for a one-day IRTA test, preparing for the Motul TT Assen round that will be held in the Netherlands in two weeks‘ time.
