Enea Bastianini has charged to a dream debut MotoGP vi♋ctory after passing surprise long-time leader Pol Espargaro in the cloꦑsing stages of the 2022 Qatar season-opener.

The talented young Italian thus handed the new look Gresini Ducati team, which lost team principal Fausto Gresini a year ago, an emotional first premier-class win since Tꦦoni Elias in 2006!

The upsets continued with Brad Binder taking advantage of ꦓa mistake by Espargaro, struggling for grip by the closing laps, to snatch second for KTM - and almost catch Bastianini!

✱Re♎psol team-mates Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro perfectly announced the arrival of the all-new Honda by blasting to the front of the field at the start, with Binder seizing third from front-row qualifier Bastianini.

Es൲pargaro used a braking moment for Marquez to take the lead, while an identical Marquez mistake then allowed&n🐟bsp;Binder into second. Marquez's Turn 1 misery continued when Bastianini used Ducati (GP21) power to lever third away by lap 7 of 22.

Espargaro - on the podium once last season - built his lead to 1.5s over the middle stages but, after working his way around Binder, Bastianini began dramatically closing in on the Spaniard, m🌺aking his victory move with five laps to go.

Bastianini, who took two podiums during his rookie MotoGP season with Avintia, is the second satellite Ducat💮i rider to win a MotoGP ꧋race after Pramac's Jorge Martin, but the first to do so on a year-old bike.

After fending off the Suzukis of Joan Mir and Alex Rins, Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro used his medium rear tyre to pass Marc Marquez in the c𓂃losing laps, then set his sights on trying to reach younger brother Pol and the podium.

After impressive pace and top speed in practice, Mir and Rins were eighth and tenth in qualifying, just ahead of🐲 Yamaha's reigning world champion and 2021 Qatar winner Fabio Quartararo.

Mir and Quartararo made early gains to sixth and seventh, but the Frenchman couldn't k𒉰eep p🐎ace with Mir, who used the more powerful GSX-RR to carve through to a peak of fourth. Against expectation, Mir's rise ran out of steam, leaving he and Rins sixth and seventh.

Quartararo's fears over the level of the Yamaha were realised as he🎶 faded to ninth place.

Jack Miller, hoping to avoid last year's Qa꧅tar woes, instead dropped to the back 💝of the field and then retired with some kind of technical issue.

Things got worse for Ducati when factory team-mate and title runner-up Francesco Bagnaia, recovering w꧋ell from a lowly 15th on the opening lap, lost the front while overtaking pole starter Jorge Martin, sendi⛎ng them both down and out.

VR46 rookie Marco Bezzecchi, LCR H🐠onda's Alex Marqu𒁃ez and KTM's Miguel Oliveira also crashed.

A majority of riders chose the soft front tyre over the medium, with an equal split between so🎀ft and medium for th♚e rear.

The race began at an earlier time of 6pm, just aft꧅er sunset. Unlike in previous years, the💛re was no pre-season testing at Lusail before the race weekend.

Round two will be held at Indonesia's new Mandalika circuit, venue for the final pre-season test, on March 🅠18-20.

* Rookie