• Franco Morbidelli was happy to finish fifth in the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas over the weekend.

• His teammate and rookie Fabio Quartararo crossed the line in seventh.

• It was a great for the PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team.

While everyone was transfixed by Marc Marquez’s early departure and the subsequent battle between Valentino Rossi and Alex Rins, Franco Morbidelli rode to fifth in the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas over the weekend. It the first Top 5 finish for him and the new PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team.

Morbidelli fought hard against a resurgent Andrea Dovizioso of Mission Winnow Ducati but had to give way at the end. Dovizioso had qualified 13^thon the grid and fought his way up the field to eventually finish fourth. However, Morbidelli managed to defend his fifth position from Dovizioso’s team Danilo Petrucci.

It was Morbidelli’s best MotoGP result to date since joining the premier class last year.

“I’m very, very happy about this fifth position. We were starting a bit too far, because yesterday we had not a great qualifying. But I was confident that I could be fast in the race today” said the Italian.

His team was also very happy when MotoGP rookie Fabio Quartararo finished in seventh place, one behind Petrucci.

It was excellent results for the Malaysia-based team which didn’t exist a mere six months before the start of the 2019 season.

However, Morbidelli kept his pragmatic approach, saying that the team has to keep improving. “We need to work, we need to improve to get those 8 seconds here. Couple of seconds in Argentina. So we are missing something to get on the podium.”