Pre-season Moto3 favourite Maverick Vinales duly made history by winning the first race of the new world championship at Qatar on Sunday night.
After catching surprise race leader, and grand prix rookie, Romano Fenati the pair traded places for longer than expected before Vinales finally broke clear of his fellow FTR-Honda rider to win by 4.301sec.
“I am very satisfied with the job that the team and I did this evening,” said Vinales. “We have worked really hard for this, above all with the tyres. We always try and work with the race in mind and it went well for us.
“I was taking things steadily until I saw Fenati escape - then I had to make a big effort to try and cut the gap. I have to congratulate him for his race as well, because he rode really well."
Vinales, 17, is now the second youngest rider of all time, after Marco Melandri, to take three successive GP wins.
The number 25 rider also outshone his Blusens Avintia colleagues, the team being present in all three classes of Grand Prix racing this year.
Julian Simon finished 15th in Moto2, Colombian Yonny Hernandez managed 14th on his CRT bike in MotoGP, with Ivan Silva finishing 16th in the same race.
source: crash.net
