Iannone vows to make Qatar crash “first and last” of 2017

Suzuki rider Andrea Iannone says he wants to ensure his crash in the Qatar MotoGP season-opener is his “first and last” of the year.

The Italian was able to stay in the leading group for the first part of Sunday’s Losail race, exchanging second place with Honda’s Marc Marquez for a number of laps.

However, their battle came to an end on Lap 11, when Iannone crashed out of the race at Turn 5 – marking his second straight retirement in Qatar after he fell in 2016 while battling for the lead.

He said the reason for the crash was slight contact with Marquez, who he thought would be faster through the turn, but conceded that this was not a valid excuse for failing to finish.

“I tried to manage the risks, but when Marquez slowed unfortunately I made a mistake,” recalled Iannone of the incident.

“I didn’t realise that he could be so slow in this corner and I entered it like I did in previous laps. So I hit him, and I crashed.

"It’s one of those things that can happen, but it shouldn’t happen."

He added: “Right now it’s not easy for us to overtake, because we struggle with the brakes, but this is not an excuse. The problem is I made a mistake, but I shouldn’t be making these errors.

“I hope that it’s the first and the last of this year.”

Podium potential a "surprise"

Iannone added that he was convinced he could have scored a top-three finish on his Suzuki debut if not for his mistake – and took the positives from a surprisingly strong weekend in Losail.

“I think we had a good chance to fight for the podium,” said the Italian.

“We could have finished in third place and this would have been a great achievement, because we did not expect to have this potential after all our difficulties in testing.

“It’s a shame, because in free practice we reacted very well by being close to the top riders. We arrived at the race very competitive, and this is positive.”