Marc Marquez re-established his command of MotoGP by defeating Jorge Lorenzo in the Aragon Grand Prix, as Dani Pedrosa crashed out.
Pedrosa’s lap-six incident looks set to end his 2013 championship hopes, and came amid a battle with Honda teammate Marquez.
Lorenzo’s Yamaha had again burst into the lead at the start, but this time the Hondas soon reeled him back in. As they did so, Pedrosa overtook Marquez. Unique among the top three in running a harder front tire, Pedrosa looked like he might have a race pace advantage.
A few laps later, Marquez surged back down the outside of Pedrosa to try to reclaim second, but ran wide over the run-off area. At the same moment, Pedrosa launched into a violent high-side on the exit of the corner and crashed into retirement. He was checked for a potential left knee injury but escaped without serious injuury.
Marquez was now two seconds behind Lorenzo, a gap he chipped away at until slipping into the lead with six laps remaining. Lorenzo tried to fight back and closed in again, only for a final spurt from Marquez to give him victory by 1.3 seconds.
Valentino Rossi returned to the podium in third on the second Yamaha. He had to fight hard to get there, only claiming the place after a huge, race-long dice that also involved Alvaro Bautista, Stefan Bradl and Cal Crutchlow.
Bradley Smith, Ducati pair Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden, and Andrea Iannone completed the top 10, with Aleix Espargaro a class apart in CRT again in 11th.
Results - 23 laps:Pos Rider Team/Bike Time/Gap 1. Marc Marquez Honda 42m03.459s 2. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha +1.356s 3. Valentino Rossi Yamaha +12.927s 4. Alvaro Bautista Gresini Honda +13.787s 5. Stefan Bradl LCR Honda +13.973s 6. Cal Crutchlow Tech 3 Yamaha +14.662s 7. Bradley Smith Tech 3 Yamaha +31.220s 8. Andrea Dovizioso Ducati +40.671s 9. Nicky Hayden Ducati +53.413s10. Andrea Iannone Pramac Ducati +55.067s11. Aleix Espargaro Aspar Aprilia +58.001s12. Yonny Hernandez Pramac Ducati +1m05.513s13. Randy de Puniet Aspar Aprilia +1m06.589s14. Hiroshi Aoyama Avintia FTR-Kawasaki +1m08.674s15. Claudio Corti Forward FTR-Kawasaki +1m09.130s16. Colin Edwards Forward FTR-Kawasaki +1m12.041s17. Luca Scassa Cardion Aprilia +1m45.152s18. Bryan Staring Gresini FTR-Honda +1m45.228s19. Lukas Pesek Ioda-Suter-BMW +1m45.583sRetirements: Hector Barbera Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 8 laps Dani Pedrosa Honda 5 laps Damian Cudlin PBM-Aprilia 3 laps Danilo Petrucci Ioda-Suter-BMW 0 laps Michael Laverty PBM Aprilia 0 laps
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