Enea Bastianini leaves the 2022 Qatar M💟otoGP as ꦗthe championship leader following a stunning maiden victory. 

Following a poor start to the race which saw🌠 the Gresini rider relegated to fifth - started second - Bastianini timed his overtakes to perfection before 🅺holding off Brad Binder on the final lap. 

With tyre choice pro🃏ving to be key, Bastianini elected for the medium rear while many of the riders around him chose the softer 🎐option.

Speaking about his first ever premier class win, Bastianini added: "I’m very happy today. We saw a very good potential in the test and when we arrived hꦍere we have done another step on the set-up and electronics. 

"Yesterday, for the first time I did a r༺eally good lap time in the qu🧸alifying. Today I started from the first row. 

"The best choice for me was the medium onꦚ the rear because this morning I tried it in the warm-up 🌜and saw a good potential. 

"Also, with the soft it pumps a lot in the slow corner but the medium was mo🌟re stable. I thought ‘okay I need to p🔯ut the medium’. 

"It wasn’t easy in the first part of tꩲhe race because Pol [Espargaro] pushed a lot, but the last seven laps it was ♐the best choice. So with that it was possible to close the gap and to win." 

On a day where Ducati saw three of its main title contenders score zero points - Jack Miller retired due to technical⛎ issues, while Francesco Bagnaia wiped out Jorge Martin at turn one after losing the front end of his factory Lenovo Ducati - Ba🦹stianini’s win saved the Italian manufacturer’s blushes given Qatar is a circuit Ducati tend to do very well at. 

While the win was a huge moment for Bastianini, it was also a huge moment for the team and MotoGP as🔯 a whole following the loss of former Gresini Racing Team Owner, Fausto, due to CꦛOVID-19 shortly before last season. 

Dedicating his win to the late Fausto Gresini, Bastianini saidಌ: "Yeah it was really nice! (to win for him) Fausto ha🌜d such really good guys in this team and now Nadia [Padovani] (New Team Owner) has brought together the team and the atmosphere is fantastic. All the guys are so motivated like me. It stayed possible to do this for him today."