Marquez cruises to victory in Argentina, Rossi beats Dovi

Full Argentina MotoGP race results

Marc Marquez has produced a flawless performance to take victory in Argentina by over nine seconds ahead of Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso who had a race-long battle for the runner-up spot.

The Repsol Honda rider bolted from pole position to quickly build up a lead over the chasing pack and never looked in danger and avenged some painful memories of his disaster race in Argentina 12 months ago.

But the battle for the final two podium places raged between multiple riders before Rossi and Dovizioso edged clear over the closing laps using their experience to maintain position and conserve tyre life.

While the pair traded overtakes on Lap 7 and Lap 8, Dovizioso looked to defend second place from the Monster Yamaha rider on the final lap having sized each other up.

But Rossi caught Dovizioso off guard with a textbook block pass up the inside at Turn 7 on the final lap before skating clear of the Ducati rider to take second place and his first MotoGP rostrum since the German round last year.

With Dovizioso having to settle for third place he loses the MotoGP world championship lead to Marquez, having won in Qatar with the defending champion taking second spot in the opener, with the perceived dominance of Ducati tainted by Marquez.

Pramac Ducati’s Jack Miller demonstrated his class in Argentina by seeing off a late surge from Alex Rins to take fourth place, while the Suzuki rider produced an impressive recovery ride having qualified a lowly 16^th place to finish fifth.

The pair were ahead of a dramatic last lap clash between Petronas Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli and Monster Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales, with the Italian rider clattering the rear of the factory rider under braking for Turn 7 which took both of them down.

Danilo Petrucci was lucky to avoid being tangled up in the incident as he profited for sixth place ahead of Fabio Quartararo on the Petronas Yamaha in front of Takaaki Nakagami on the LCR Honda.

Nakagami’s team-mate Cal Crutchlow saw his race wrecked by a ride-through penalty for jumping the start, which was tricky to see on TV replays, while the other Honda of Jorge Lorenzo suffered a nightmare start to drop to last position by Turn 1.

The late exit of Morbidelli and Vinales promoted Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro to ninth place directly ahead of brother Pol Espargaro on the Red Bull KTM as Miguel Oliveira capped an impressive race with 11^th for Tech 3.

Lorenzo’s recovery saw him climb to 12^th place, with Crutchlow taking 13^th place having matched Marquez’s race pace after his penalty, with Francesco Bagnaia (Pramac Ducati) and Johann Zarco (Red Bull KTM) rounding out the points finishers. Hafizh Syahrin (Tech 3) and Andrea Iannone (Aprilia) were the final classified finishers.

Avintia Ducati suffered a nightmare race with both Karel Abraham and Tito Rabat crashing out at Turn 1 on penultimate laps. Joan Mir retired for Suzuki with a mechanical issue.