Marquez continues CoTA win streak as Vinales crashes
Honda’s Marc Marquez stormed to his first win of the season after an early battle with team-mare Dani Pedrosa, whilst Maverick Vinales crashed out.
Marquez and Vinales had been a cut above the rest of the field in terms of pace all weekend, and it was expected the pair would lock horns over a crucial victory in the fight for the 2017 world championship.
At the start, fitted with the medium front tyre, Pedrosa took the holeshot and used his early grip advantage to excellent effect to keep Marquez at bay, whilst Valentino Rossi and Vinales followed close behind.
Desperate to stop the Hondas clearing off into the distance whilst stuck behind Rossi, Vinales lost the front-end of his YZR-M1 going through the long right of Turn 18 and slid into his first DNF since Argentina last year.
Twitter: Viñales has gone down! It won’t be the dream hat-trick for #MV25!
#RiderOK #AmericasGP https://t.co/KucjbdWjm3 (@MotoGP)
With Vinales out, Marquez got the hammer down but struggled to topple the stubborn defences of his team-mate. Pedrosa was quick to counter any move Marquez made, though eventually his resolve was broken and the reigning world champion was got the hammer down.
Pedrosa soon fell into the clutches of Rossi, who had been handed a 0.3s penalty for allegedly gaining advantage at Turn 3 earlier in the race when he was forced off track by a fired-up Zarco.
Rossi found a way through at the penultimate corner at the end of lap 19, and pulled the pin to open up a penalty-voiding gap of 1.7s to cruise across the line in second to take over the championship lead by six points.
Twitter: Zarco is the man on the move, piling the pressure on #VR46… who was forced to run off the track!
#AmericasGP https://t.co/Q6rwfVQQSb (@MotoGP)
The factory Honda team ended their barren run in 2017 in emphatic style with a fifth successive Austin win for Marquez and Pedrosa’s first podium since his Misano heroics of last season, firmly putting them back in the hunt after a double DNF in Argentina.
The battle for fourth reached fever pitch on the final laps, Cal Crutchlow swapping paint with Zarco. The Briton held firm, with the Tech 3 rider tallying up yet another top five finish in his maiden season.
Ducati took a gamble in running the softer tyre in the hope it would put them amongst the leaders in the early stages. However, this punt backfired and Andrea Dovizioso took the chequered flag in a distant sixth, whilst team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was shuffled back to ninth on the final lap.
Between them was Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone, who finally racks up his first points of the year ahead Pramac’s Danilo Petrucci. Jack Miller completed the top 10, with Jonas Folger, Scott Redding, Tito Rabat, Hector Barbera and, despite an early fall, Alvaro Bautista rounding out the points paying positions.
Bradley Smith was unlucky to be denied KTM’s second successive points finish in 16th, whilst team-mate Pol Espargaro was forced to park up early with a mechanical issue. Sam Lowes and Loris Baz joined the Spaniard on the sidelines.