To absolutely no-one’s surprise, reigning MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez has takenvictory in today’s Austin race, grabbing the lead with 17 laps to go and crossing the line with a 2.3s gap after slowing to take the applause of his crew.
The Repsol Honda man, who pulled out an extraordinary lap to set pole position, was imperious after he passed Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso on the brakes and set about clearing off into the middle distance, pulling a 1.2s gap in two laps.
Dovizioso was left to scrap it out with Valentino Rossi for the final podium spot and after the pair swapped places several times, Dovi pulled a pass on Rossi that The Doctor would have been proud of, keeping the throttle lit as they changed direction through the esses. Although Rossi looked as if he may have something left, it became clear his hard compound front tyre had other ideas and Dovizioso, who had chosen the medium front, remained in second place but an out of fuel on the slow-down lap.
Jorge Lorenzo, also on the mediumfront, took fourth after a minor to-do with Andrea Iannone on the second works Ducati. The Italian had to come through from way down the grid but made short work of it, catching and passing Lorenzo’s Yamaha on the brakes into turn one on lap six before doing a number on Britain’s Bradley Smith, who had got away in fourth.
The Spaniard kept a watching brief and found a late spurt of speed, lapping a second quicker than Rossi to go back in front of Iannone with three laps left as Smith’s satellite Monster Yamaha just didn’t have the pace to live with the factory bikes.
Smith finished in sixth place and top satellite rider, one place ahead of Cal Crutchlow who wasted a second-row start by scything his way back to tenth place on lap one. The CWM LCR Honda rider came through to finish seventh but only two seconds ahead of Aleix Espargaro on the Suzuki.
Rookie Maverick Vinales took ninth place, 19.5s behind his Suzuki team-mate while Danilo Petrucci put in a great performance to finish tenth on the Pramac Ducati. Nicky Hayden won the battle of the Open Hondas in 13th, just ahead of Jack Miller.
Eugene Laverty made an impressive start and ran as high as 12th early in the race but slipped back to 16th, one ahead of Loris Baz. It was disaster for Scott Redding, however. The Marc VDS man tried to push past Pol Espargaro into the downhill turn 11 but lost the front and took the Monster Yamaha man with him. He re-mounted but retired a few laps later.
