Marquez wins Aragon MotoGP to extend points lead

The 23-year-old Repsol Honda rider fought back after an early technical problem, which saw him briefly drop to fifth position from pole, to claim his fourth victory of the 2016 campaign.

While Rossi passed both Lorenzo and Vinales to take the lead, Marquez regrouped and began to close the gap to the pair in front.

With the win, Marquez moved 52 points clear in the title race and now has 248 points to Rossi’s 196.

From there, Marquez began opening a lead, eventually finishing 2.740 seconds ahead of Lorenzo, and 5.983 seconds ahead of Rossi.

“I’m really happy, because the last races Rossi was gaining points but now we [have] stopped [that run] and this is good”.

“It wasn’t easy. The start of the race with the full tank was hard but then I settled into it and got into a good rhythm with Pirro”.

“It’s a shame because with two laps to go I made a mistake in braking and I had to go wide, if not we could have fought for the second place but the podium is okay”, he said.

Compatriot Jorge Lorenzo took second to the delight of the home, with the usual partisan Rossi fans not quite a factor in Aragon as they are across the rest of the calendar.

“Probably the crash from this morning made me finish second today”, he said. “Also, Marquez and Lorenzo are very strong in the next races to the end and it is like now we are on the last part: we need to try to be competitive everywhere”. However, he didn’t have the pace to hold off Marquez and a breaking error two laps from the end ensured he couldn’t maintain the pressure on Lorenzo for second.

“I braked, it was a little bit too fast and it was too unsafe so I chose to cut the corner and go wide [on the exit]”.

Rossi needed to be kept on his toes, too, as Lorenzo lined up several attempts at making the pass into second before finally scything his way past the Doctor and into second place.

“Anyway, the podium is good here in Aragon because we always suffer a bit”.

Earlier, Brad Binder became South Africa’s first motorcycle world champion for 36 years in the Moto3 category.

Racing gets underway at 14:00 local time at MotorLand Aragon, as Marquez prepares to paint the town red – and increase that 43 point lead as the flyways beckon on the road to Valencia.