Marquez dominant as rivals falter at Le Mans

Full MotoGP race results from Le Mans

Marc Marquez has extended his MotoGP world championship lead to 36 points with a comfortable victory at Le Mans after seeing title rivals Andrea Dovizioso and Johann Zarco both crash out in separate incidents.

While Jorge Lorenzo made a storming start for Ducati to lead early on, Marquez was shuffled back to fifth place as pole-sitter and home favourite Zarco made a bold move at Turn 3 to carve up to second ahead of Dovizioso.

The Italian factory Ducati rider, who signed a new contract at the start of the race weekend, looked to made an early charge getting past Zarco and teammate Lorenzo by lap five but led for just three corners before crashing out at Turn 6.

A couple of laps later Marquez, having got past Danilo Petrucci, traded passes with Zarco for second place before the French rider went slightly wide at Turn 8 before tucking the front of his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 and tipping off.

With two of his main rivals out Marquez made light work of taking the lead from Lorenzo by pushing the Ducati rider out wide to disrupt his rhythm.

Lorenzo appeared to suffer a mid-race fade as he dropped down the order while Marquez began building a lead with Petrucci up to second place.

Despite seeing the gap rise and fall between the front two, Marquez looked comfortable in front and eased to a third consecutive victory and extend his MotoGP championship lead to 36 points.

Valentino Rossi led the Movistar Yamaha charge by completing the podium having kept clear of a late attack from Jack Miller on the Pramac Ducati.

Dani Pedrosa battled past Lorenzo to take fifth place on the Repsol Honda, while winner at Le Mans from 12 months ago Maverick Vinales finishes a distant seventh place but has promoted himself to second in the riders’ standings.

Cal Crutchlow valiantly fought back from a heavy highside crash during qualifying to claim eighth place for LCR Honda ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Suzuki’s Alex Rins – with Andrea Iannone crashing out of the race on the opening lap.

Pol Espargaro secured 11^th place for the emerging Red Bull KTM squad as Tech 3’s Hafizh Syahrin held on to top rookie status just ahead of Marc VDS Honda’s Franco Morbidelli. KTM’s Bradley Smith and LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami completed the points places.