Motogp
Marquez wants to 'feel like a MotoGP rider again' on injury return
The 28-year-old Spaniard hasn't raced since breaking his right arm in last season's championship opener at Jerez.
Italy's Francesco Bagnaia, on another Ducati, came third on his first ride in the factory team after starting on pole, beating reigning champion Joan Mir of Suzuki back into fourth in the final moments of the race.
The new MotoGP season gets underway in the Gulf state this weekend with a host of riders looking to exploit the continued absence of six-time world champion Marc Marquez.
While Marquez's medical team reported a 'good clinical response' following the operation for an infected pseudoarthrosis of the right humerus, they decided not to rush his return to the track, the statement said.
The Italian will line up alongside compatriot Franco Morbidelli for the Yamaha satellite team, having signed a one-year extension to his contract with the Japanese manufacturer.
Despite the award, Red Bull KTM rider Brad Binder wanted more from his first year in the MotoGP class.
Rossi will join Yamaha's satellite Petronas team, leaving the factory to go ahead with Fabio Quartararo alongside Maverick Vinales in 2021.
Joan Mir will be crowned world champion with one race to spare if he can produce a top-three finish at the same track where he delivered a maiden premier category victory last weekend.
The 41-year-old Italian has to compete a 10-day quarantine and test negative before he can return to the circuits.
Binder has moved through the ranks slowly but surely in the past couple of years, graduating from the Red Bull Rookies Cup to Moto3.
Valentino Rossi, a nine-time world champion, was left shaken after Franco Morbidelli's cartwheeling Yamaha, travelling at around 300 km/h (187mph), flew across the track just centimetres in front of him.
EWN's Cindy Poluta chatted to motorcyclist and the first South African to win a MotoGP race, Brad Binder. He claimed victory in the MotoGP Czech Grand Prix on 9 August 2020.
Binder became the first South African to win a MotoGP when he claimed top spot on the podium in the Czech Republic.
Binder became the first South African on Sunday to win a race in the MotoGP era.
The Spaniard fractured his arm in the season opener in Spain on July 19 and missed the following race despite initially being declared fit to take part, just 48 hours after having a titanium plate inserted during surgery.
Quartararo, on a satellite Yamaha, was followed home by Spaniard Maverick Vinales and Italian veteran Valentino Rossi, both on Yamaha factory bikes, as only 13 of the 21 starters finished.
Honda said Marc Marquez would remain in a Barcelona hospital for up to 48 hours after a titanium plate was inserted into his right arm during surgery.
Marquez, the 27-year-old Spaniard who won MotoGP world titles in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, is determined to continue demolishing the competition on his Honda, with his younger brother Alex, who won last year's Moto2 title, as his team-mate for just one season.