MotoGP America: Marquez wins, Rossi leads championship

The winner was the same as the last four years, but the race was anything but a procession. Maverick was setting the fastest times and had pole, but Marquez managed to squeeze out pole position anyway. Then Rossi managed one of the few front-row starts of his career in the new qualifying format, but the holeshot went to the other Repsol Honda - that of Dani Pedrosa. 

Pedrosa led most of the race, and one of the early exits was Maverick Vinales. That set the tone for the leaders, with Marc Marquez relaxing and following Pedrosa around for a fair few laps. Near the end he turned the wick up and opened up a gap of a few seconds over Pedrosa, who was running a medium front tyre. The Doctor was right behind him with medium tyres both front and rear, and Pedrosa didn't have enough left on the right side of his front tyre to fight for second place. Rossi had Zarco fight for third place at one point, which led to him getting a 0.3 second penalty as he straight-lined a corner after contact with Zarco, but as it turned out, it was inconsequential. Rossi is now six points clear of Vinales in the championship, making him the series leader. 

Zarco and Crutchlow had a fight for fourth place with Crutchlow getting the better of the rookie, although Zarco is so much fun to watch. Dovizioso didn't get taken out by anyone for a change, and brought it home in sixth. Seventh through tenth read Iannone, Petrucci, Lorenzo and Miller - #99 finally getting some sort of respectable result on his new machine after crashing at the first corner in Argentina. 

Ultimately Marquez remains the King of the Circuit of the Americas, but Rossi stole the show with yet another rags-to-riches weekend, leaving the race as championship leader at 38 years old. The next race is in a fortnight at Jerez, Spain - expect another surprise result as the MotoGP circus returns to home soil.