After leading all the practices, a dominant Marc Marquez scored his second win of the season in the Grand Prix of the Americas.
The race had a dramatic beginning with Jorge Lorenzo making a mistake and causing a jump start, which would cost him a Ride Through. Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa did a good start that put them in first and second place.
Without Lorenzo in the lead group, the last podium position was available for several drivers. Andrea Iannone was in third place, followed closely by Cal Crutchlow and Stefan Bradl, who lost places at the start from the front row. Iannone tried to pull off from his followers, who set a group of seven riders.
Valentino Rossi didn’t want to lose time to fight for the podium and overtook Bradl and Crutchlow and pushed to catch Iannone. Then, Crutchlow started to lose places with Bradl and his teammate Andrea Dovizioso. In the lead, Marquez and Pedrosa ran comfortably way ahead from the rest.
With 17 laps to go, Rossi was right behind Iannone, being one second faster than his compatriot. At the same time, Crutchlow suffered again of problems in his Ducati and lost ground with the group ahead. From behind, Lorenzo did his best to get some precious points –especially after crashing in Qatar– and was 19th.
Iannone was defending from Rossi when, suddenly, the Italian from Yamaha started to lose ground and was passed by Bradl, Dovizioso and both Tech 3 riders, who were far from the group. The problems were worse for Crutchlow, who after being in boxes to check his bike suffered a nasty crash that required medical attention.
With seven laps to go, Lorenzo was 10th, the place where he would finish. At the front, Iannone was passed by Bradl and Dovizioso, who started to fight for the podium alongside Bradley Smith. The German and the Briton started passing each other and Dovizioso took advantage of this and pulled away to try to secure his podium finish with two laps to go.
In the end, Marquez won the race after suffering a wobble in the last corner. Pedrosa was second and Dovizioso finished in third place.
Crutchlow suffered a right hand fracture following his crash.
