Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez cruised to his fourth straight win at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas and increased his championship lead as his opposition fell like nine pins.
Marquez led from the exit of turn one as Jorge Lorenzo ran wide and then promptly cleared off, lapping a full second quicker than anyone else could manage to cross the line with a six-second advantage.
But is was disaster for Valentino Rossi as he lost the front of his Movistar Yamaha at turn four - just a few hundred metres before the site of Lorenzo’s warm-up spill - and couldn’t remount and continue.
That was the first of the big-name crashes. Four laps later, Dani Pedrosa’s Honda took on the attitude of a Texan rodeo bull and spat him off on the run into turn one.
As the Repsol Honda skittered towards the kitty litter, it collected Andrea Dovizioso’s works Ducati as the Italian rider recovered from running wide. Pedrosa got back on but retired shortly afterwards.
And if that wasn’t enough Cal Crutchlow, who is suffering from gout, lost the front of his LCR Honda into turn 11 and Bradley Smith, who was following, went down in sympathy with his Monster Yamaha narrowly missing the Isle of Man resident.
Both men got back on to finish in 16th and 17th, just behind Loris Baz, who also crashed at turn one.
Lorenzo had a lonely race to second place and 20 points after a couple of errors on the opening lap saw him run wide twice and get bounced back to fourth. The reigning champ worked his way back to runner-up spot but had nothing for Marquez as the RC213V disappeared into the distance.
Andrea Iannone took third place, some 4.9s behind Lorenzo while the Suzuki boys of Maverick Vinales and Alex Espargaro gave the factory their first double top-five result since John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen back when all this was fields. Espargaro made an intial charge, fighting with Pedrosa and the Ducatis while Vinales got off to a slower start and had to come past Scott Redding to challenge his team-mate. Vinales went past with 11 to go but didn’t make an immediate break.
The Spaniard slowly pulled away from Espargaro as Redding looked like he had designs on fifth place but just didn’t have the pace, remaining in sixth place for his best result of the season so far. Pol Espargaro took seventh but had to fend off the attentions of Ducati test rider Michele Pirro, who is standing in for Danilo Petrucci.
Hector Barbera was fighting a worn front tyre to take ninth while Stefan Bradl took tenths with good signs he is finally making some headway with the new Aprilia. Team-mate Alvaro Bautisa was one place but five seconds behind while Eugene Laverty got the better of his Aspar Ducati stablemate Yonny Hernandez with five left to claim more points in 12th. Tito Rabat also went past Hernandez in the closing stages for 13th.
Jack Miller did not take part after a whopping highside in free practice one saw him break a bone in his foot and re-injure the leg he broke in a pre-season motocross crash.
