MotoGP: Dovi dominates in the rain to become winner number nine

Andrea Dovizioso has played a clever game to dominate this afternoon’s Malaysian Grand Prix, taking his second win in the premiere class and becoming the ninth MotoGP race winner of the 2016 season in the process.

It was his teammate Andrea Iannone who was the early breakaway man, however, before becoming locked in battle for the lead with Valentino Rossi. And while the pair battled it out, Dovi was content to sit behind them, conserving his tyres until the closing stages and powering past both his countrymen and never looking back.

And while Rossi was able to hang onto him to finish second, Iannone was one of a handful of front-runners to crash out, falling at almost the same time as both Cal Crutchlow and Marc Marquez as the Honda duo battled for fourth behind him.

That gave Jorge Lorenzo the chance to steal third, ahead of a surprise result for the Avintia Ducati pear of Hector Barbera and Loris Baz. Maverick Viñales was sixth, while Alvaro Bautista gave Aprilia their best result since they returned to the series in seventh. Jack Miller, Pol Espargaró and Danilo Petrucci rounded out the top ten.

Eugene Laverty was best of the Brits in eleventh, while the still-injured Bradley Smith came home in 14^th, with Scott Redding’s disaster weekend finishing in 15^th.