Honda Racing Corporation rider Marc Marquez won his fourth-straight MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas, leading from pole and making it his 10th victory in a row on American soil.
Marc led from the beginning of the Texas weekend, finishing first in every practice, earning pole position and finally leading the race from the start to the chequered flag. After 21 laps of the Circuit of the Americas - of which Marquez had led all - he took the chequered flag over six seconds ahead of 2015 MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo, with Ducati's Andrea Iannone rounding up the podium in third place.
With this victory, Marquez, on 66 points, extended his lead in the Championship standings by 21 points over Lorenzo. Marquez has also doubled the overall tally of Rossi's 33 points.
During the race, Marquez also set the fastest lap of the race at 2'04.682 on lap 11. With this success, Marquez overtakes Kevin Schwantz in number of victories in the premier class, with 26, while Honda now leads both the Constructor and Team standings.
(Marquez celebrates his win)
The more significant events in the race were however, of those who didn't quite finish. Valentino Rossi lost his front end in Turn 2 on just the third lap, ending a streak of 24 consecutive race finishes, all of which were in the top five.
Dani Pedrosa got a good start from the third row to slot into fifth place by the end of the first lap. But on the seventh lap, he lost the front while braking into Turn 1, crashing and in doing so, unfortunately taking out Andrea Dovizioso. After rushing to check that the Italian was unhurt, Dani remounted his bike and re-joined the race but was forced to retire on lap 11 due to damage to his bike.
Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith suffered identical falls within moments of each other at Turn 11.
With two demanding back-to-back flyaway races behind them, the MotoGP World Championship now heads to Europe for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez on April 24.
