Marc Marquez destroyed the opposition as he stormed to the win in front of his home crowd at Aragon.
The Repsol Honda man overcame a mistake which dropped him back to fifth early on in the race to take the win with relative ease, almost three seconds ahead of countryman Jorge Lorenzo with Valentino Rossi third.
As the lights turned green, Marquez got a quick start but so did Ecstar Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales.
Vinales got through into the lead but Marquez was right back on him, taking it back before running wide and allowing Vinales back up to the lead and Lorenzo through to third.
Marquez soon got past the Movistar Yamaha pilot and set off chasing Vinales. It was the Suzuki that led over the line at the end of the first lap but Marquez wasn’t keen to stick in second for long, and got an easy pass on Vinales to move ahead.
But a lap later, Marquez made an error and ran himself wide, dropping back to fifth behind the Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso. It took two laps before he was passed the Italian, and then he started to chase the Movistar Yamaha duo of Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, who were running second and third respectively.
However Rossi was also in the mood for some fun, and moved past his team-mate into second place a few laps later. Marquez came through moments later, dropping Lorenzo to fourth.
With the bit between his teeth and able to see a possible victory ahead of him, Rossi pushed on, catching his 2017 team-mate and passing him on lap nine for the lead.
And there he may well have stayed – had it not been for two fired-up Spaniards. Marquez was still on the comeback trail and having already deposed Vinales, took just another two laps to get alongside and fly past Rossi without any problems. From there, it was the last anyone saw of the champion-elect.
Rossi was soon the man under pressure from Lorenzo, and on lap 19 of the 23-lap race the reigning champ made a move. But Rossi wasn’t giving up without a fight and made a few moves to try and get up close.
On the penultimate lap The Doctor decided it was time for action and made an audacious move up the inside. But it was too much, he was too quick and couldn’t get it turned in time and ran wide. Lorenzo coasted back through as Rossi re-joined several bike lengths down and it was the end of the charge.
Marquez took the flag in front of an elated home crowd with Lorenzo and Rossi second and third. Vinales scored a well-deserved fourth ahead of Britain’s Cal Crutchlow.
Cal had enjoyed a steady race but was never able to get any higher than fifth, beating Dani Pedrosa who finished sixth, Aleix Espargaro on the second Ecstar Suzuki in seventh and Pol Espargaro on the solitary Monster Yamaha eight.
Ninth and tenth went to the delighted Aprilia Racing Team pair of Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl, while Dovizioso’s day got worse and worse as he dropped more and more places to eventually bring his Ducati home 11th.
Eugene Laverty was 14th on his Pull & Bear Aspar Team Ducati while Scott Redding was 19th after an opening lap altercation with Danilo Petrucci which resulted in Redding crashing.
