Moto2 champion Franco Morbidelli kicked off his MotoGP career with a 'better th🧸an expected' twelfth place, as the top rookie, in the Qatar seasoꦉn opener.

Starting from 14th, the Marc VDS Honda ri🍌der gained two places despite a cautious start and spent the early stages right behind triple MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo.

"In the beginning it was a bit tricky, in fact I took it easy because I didn't want to m♛ake any silly moves," Morbidelli said. "Then during the race it was just good to battle with people like Lorenzo.

"It was nice to see ꦉhim during the race and I had a chan🍰ce for some laps with him, then he pulled away. I had the chance to learn and see where they are better, where I am better."

The Italian added: "You learn how to manage a tyre, how to manage yourself. You learn how and where 🌱to push, the right spots, and where to control. How to ride. You learn many small things that you can bring to the next races. You gain experience basically."

Morbid๊elli went on to finish within 1.7s of Marc VDS predecessors Tito Rabat and Jack Miller, while a comfortable four-seconds clear of next-best rookie Hafizh Syahrin (Tech3 Yamaha).

"I'm happy. It was a gooℱd race first race for us. I had fun," Morbidelli smiled. "We did better than we were expecting, according to what we did during practice. So we made a step during the race and I'm really happy about that.

"I was having fun when the tyre dropped because I was sliding out of the corners, but it wasn't something impressive. I mean I was just having a bit morꦅe fun and I wasn't fast enough towards the end because maybe I pushed a little a little bit too much in the middle of the race, so I b🌺urned a little bit my energy and my tyre."

Morbidelli, who won eight Moto2 races last season, finished 16-seconds from race winner A꧋ndrea Dovizioso but insisted he♒ is not daunted by his new challenge.

"Life is a challenge. Life is made by challenge. So my aim is to keep going forward as a rider, as a pᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚerson, every d🐲ay," he replied. "So now I'm here in MotoGP and my goal is to keep going forward and keep improving my bike, my team, my riding style, everything!"

Team-m𓆏ate and fellow rookie Thomas Luthi lost out on the final point by less than one-second to Karel Abraham.

"I'm happy althougওh with mixed feelings because even though I'm out of the points 16th 🌼is good result in my first race and closer than I thought I would be after the winter tests," said the Swiss.

"In the race I had some issues in the braking area and ran wide a couple of times and lost a lot of time. But overall I was able to use a lot of things we꧒ learned in testing. Now we need to analyse everythin𝔉g and work to improve for the next race in Argentina."

The remaining rookies, Takaaki Nakagami and Xavier Simeon, finished 17th and 20t💯h respectively.