Andrea Dovizioso stormed to victory at the British Grand Prix to take the lead in the MotoGP standings, while Marc Marquez suffered an engine failure.
On his 300th premier class start, Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi took the holeshot into the first corner and immediately built up a buffer of eight tenths to the chasing Marquez.
Rossi’s team-mate Maverick Vinales, who was the only one of the leading bunch to run the soft rear tyre, quickly muscled his way through on Marquez at Copse at the beginning of lap three and proceeded to chase down the Italian.
By the sixth lap, Dovizioso had found his way through on Marquez for third, though the Spaniard did try to retaliate throughout the final sector on the eleventh lap.
Not long after, the Ducati rider had moved into second ahead of Vinales and began to reel in Rossi at the front of the field.
Trailing Marquez by 16 points after the Austrian Grand Prix, the championship turned on its head when Marquez suffered an engine failure on the Hangar Straight on lap 14.
Not content with a four-point lead heading to Misano, Dovizioso eased ahead of Rossi with three laps to go, while Vinales followed suit towards the end of the lap.
Dovizioso tried to clear off, but a small mistake at Brooklands on the final tour allowed Vinales to close right up as they ran through the final complex.
However, Dovizioso held on by just 0.114 seconds to take his fourth win of 2017 and a nine-point lead in the championship.
Rossi fended off a hard charge from home favourite Cal Crutchlow for third, his gap in the championship down to 26.
Jorge Lorenzo completed the top five on his Ducati ahead of Johann Zarco, while Dani Pedrosa led home Scott Redding, Alex Rins and Alvaro Bautista to round out the top 10.
Pol Espargaro took the chequered flag in 11th, though suffered a bizarre highside into the first corner on his cooldown lap. Tito Rabat, Karel Abraham, Hector Barbera and Loris Baz were the last of the points scorers.
Bradley Smith ended his first home race as a KTM rider in 17th, while compatriot Sam Lowes crashed in the early stages.
Andrea Iannone and Danilo Petrucci also failed to make the finish, the Suzuki rider losing the front of his GSX-RR into Abbey on lap 18 and wiping out his compatriot.
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