OLIVEIRA TAKES DOMINANT HOME WIN, MILLER P2 AGAIN
Miguel Oliveira takes dominant home win, Jack Miller P2 again – Photo: LAT
Miguel Oliveira powered to a dominant home victory in Portugal during the final round of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship, with Australian Jack Miller in second for the second week in succession.
By DAN McCARTHY
Oliveira was in a league of his own all race long, after taking pole position the 25-year-old made a blinding start and shot off into the distance.
The Portuguese hero set fastest lap, after fastest lap early on and created a large gap that would never be threatened. Oliveira would power on to take both his and the Tech3 KTM squad’s second win of the season.
Oliveira took the win by 3.1s from Aussie Miller on his Pramac Ducati, the Queenslander once again was involved in a last lap scrap with Franco Morbidelli.
The Italian Petronas Yamaha pipped Miller to victory seven days earlier in Spain, but this time it was the Ducati rider who had the last laugh.
Miller snatched second from Morbidelli at Turn 13 and that is where he remained to take his fourth podium of the season, in what was his final race with the Pramac Ducati squad before he is promoted to the factory squad for 2021.
Miller finished the season seventh in the standings, while third-placed man Morbidelli did enough to secure second in the standings.
Over 9s behind the Miller and Morbidelli scrap was a lonely Pol Espargaro who finished fourth in his final ride for the factory KTM team.
Takaaki Nakagami rounded out the top five ahead of the veteran Andrea Dovizioso who will take a sabbatical in 2021.
After taking the MotoGP title one week ago, it was a woeful weekend for Suzuki’s Joan Mir. The Spaniard suffered electrical gremlins in qualifying and the same issue came back to haunt him in the race, forcing him to retire.
Things were not much better for his teammate Alex Rins who finished down in 15th securing just one solitary point.
Further up the pointy end, factory Honda test and replacement rider Stefan Bradl ended his season with a seventh-place finish at the Portimao circuit ahead of Aleix Espargaro, Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco.
It was yet another day to forget for the factory Yamahas, Maverick Vinales finished in 11th just ahead of his teammate Valentino Rossi who drove his final race for the Japanese factory team.
Cal Crutchlow ended his full-time MotoGP career in 13th position, after sitting in the top six positions for much of the race.
Fabio Quartararo’s rotten end to 2020 ended with a 14th position. After leading the championship just four races ago, the Frenchman finished eighth in the final standings.
Rins finished 15th ahead of Danilo Petrucci, Mika Kallio and Tito Rabat, while the rest of the riders failed to greet the chequered flag.
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