Austin Texas - Marc Marquez won the Grand Prix of the Americas for the fourth year in a row on Sunday while bitter rival Valentino Rossi was one of several riders who crashed.
Marc Marquez on his way to a fourth straight win at Circuit of the Americas. Picture: Paul Buck / EPA
Honda's MotoGP leader was again in a race of his own at the Circuit of the Americas, starting on pole position for the fourth consecutive year and pulling away after a brief tussle on the opening lap with Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo.
World champion Lorenzo finished second, 6.107 seconds adrift, and Andrea Iannone was third on a Ducati.
The win was Marquez's second in a row, and 26th in MotoGP, and left the double world champion on 66 points after three races. Lorenzo moved up to second overall on 45, with Rossi remaining on 33.
Marquez was challenged only at the start, with Lorenzo leading into the first corner before running wide and doing the same at Turn 11.
The Honda rider then had a controlled run to his 10th consecutive victory on US soil, which includes eight MotoGP races and two in Moto2, before raising four fingers in the air in triumph.
GOOD RACE
“I think I did a really good race and I feel really great on this circuit,” said Marquez. “The race was not fun but we took 25 points which was the most important.”
Rossi crashed out from sixth place on the third lap, with the Yamaha squirming away from him and into the gravel. It was the first time in 25 races that he had failed to finish in the top five.
Lorenzo fell behind Andrea Dovizioso in the battle for second place but re-took the Italian on lap five with the Ducati rider then taken out by Marquez' team-mate Dani Pedrosa on the seventh lap.
Pedrosa lost control, with the bike sliding away from under him and straight into the Ducati.
It was the second race in a row that Dovizioso had been eliminated by a rival while in a podium position. In Argentina last weekend he was felled by team mate Iannone in a final-lap drama.
Pedrosa went to apologise to Dovizioso in the Ducati garage after the race.
British pair Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith both crashed at Turn 11, with Smith's Yamaha just missing the LCR Honda rider.
Maverick Vinales finished fourth for Suzuki after a thrilling battle with team-mate Aleix Espargaro.
MOTO2
Kalex rider Alex Rins delivered a faultless performance from pole position to make his first podium finish of the young season a win, notching his third Moto2 victory his 11th career win overall on the same track where he earned his first - in Moto3 back in 2013.
Sam Lowes was second, 2.091 seconds behind the winner, with Johann Zarco, the reigning world champion and winner in Argentina last week, third, 7.737 seconds back.
"This is a difficult track for me, so a podium finish is really good," Zarco said.
Switzerland's Thomas Luthi, who topped the standings coming into the race, was seventh, and Lowes' runner-up finish was enough to vault him to the top of the standings on 47 points, one more than Rins, with Zarco third on 45.
MOTO3
Works KTM rider Romano Fenati took his first Moto3 win of 2016 - his seventh career victory - in dominant style, 6.612 seconds ahead of runner-up Jorge Navarro on a Honda.
South Africa's series leader Brad Binder powered his KTM past German Philipp Oettl on the final lap to take third, 10.535sec back.
Fenati made a superb start from fifth place on the grid, took second on lap eight, then took advantage of a mistake by Navarro to grab the lead.
"The first part of the race I was thinking that Navarro was in first and too far away," Fenati said. "But I never gave up. I pushed, I pushed very hard. I'm happy."
As he cruised home the battle for the final podium place unfolded behind him. Oettl, who started from pole for the first time in his career, moved into third when Fabio Quartararo was slowed by a late mechanical problem.
But the young German couldn't hold off Binder, who kept his nerve despite a rough ride and was too fast for Oettl on the straight.
"All weekend I've never struggled so much in my life," said Binder, who made it three podiums in three races this season after finishing second in Qatar and third in Argentina.
"When I started to get to the last eight laps I had so much chatter, I didn't know wha to do. I struggled the whole way to the end. When i saw Fabio go off, I saw Philipp wasn't too far so I only tried to keep it clean and I knew I could get him on the last lap." - Reuters, AFP