Moto2: Morbidelli romps to dominant victory

Franco Morbidelli has romped to an easy victory in the opening Moto2 race of the 2017 season at the Qatar Grand Prix, never potting a foot wrong to eventually take the win by 2.6 seconds over runner-up Thomas Luthi after backing off in the closing stages to bring it home.

Luthi chased him down for the entire race, initially in a scrap for the final podium places with the second Marc VDS machine of Alex Marquez, but the German was able to break away at mid-distance and take second place by 0.6.

And it didn’t all go the way of the younger Marquez brother behind him, as first Takaaki Nakagami and then Miguel Oliveira on KTM’s new Moto2 project made it through to demote the Spaniard to fifth at the flag, despite the Portuguese rider’s best efforts to take a podium in KTM’s first night back in the middleweight class.

Luca Marini, Fabio Quartararo, Lorenzo Baldassarri, Xavi Vierge and Axel Pons rounded out the top ten, while Danny Kent, initially running sixth on the Kiefer Racing Suter machine, faded back outside the top ten to take home two points in 13^th.