Cal Crutchlow became the first Brit to ever win an Australian GP as he stormed to the win by more than four seconds over Valentino Rossi at Phillip Island
The LCR Honda rider took the lead when newly crowned champ Marc Marquez crashed out and was never pressured as he cleared off at the front to take his second MotoGP win.
As the 27-lap race began, it was the Monster YamahaTech 3 machine of Pol Espargaro that got the best start and nabbed the hole shot to lead into the first corner. Marquez followed him in second as Danilo Petrucci moved third.
But Marquez was into the lead before end of the lap and almost instantly headed off and built himself a nice lead of several seconds.
Pol Espargaro was able to hold on to second for a couple of laps but Crutchlow was right behind him, having moved back up to third in the opening lap.
The Movistar Yamaha boys were also on the move, with Jorge Lorenzo up to seventh by lap three while Rossi was up to 10th.
Rossi was on a charge, passing Nicky Hayden, Jack Miller, Lorenzo and Petrucci in the space of two laps to move up to sixth.
Up ahead, Crutchlow had passed Pol into second, but dropped down to third briefly when the charging Suzuki Ecstar of Aleix Espargaro passed both his brother and the Brit to move from fourth to second.
But Crutchlow was having none of it, and was soon back into second while behind, Rossi was steaming through and up to fourth.
Just as it was starting to look like another Marquez show, the Repsol Honda man lost the front – quite aptly at Honda corner – and crashed out. Crutchlow inherited the lead and with Rossi now up to second, the Brit needed to get his head down and push on.
And he made it look relatively easy, stretching his lead over The Doctor to as high as six seconds at one point. Rossi was never in a position to catch him, although he too was by then riding a lonely race in second.
Behind, the fight for third was heating up between Suzuki team-mates Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales and the battling Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso.
The Ducati rider stole third from Espargaro on Lap 19 but the Spaniard was soon back on him, with Vinales in hot pursuit behind. Dovizioso lost a place to Vinales three laps later, who then moved past his team-mate and up into third.
Espargaro was desperate to get back ahead of his team-mate, but it went wrong when he lost the front just four laps from home.
At the front, Crutchlow finally backed off a tiny bit in the final two laps so as not to do anything daft and throw it away, eventually taking the win by 4.218s over Rossi, marking his second GP win and becoming the first Brit ever to win an Australian MotoGP.
Vinales took third just over a second behind Rossi, as Dovizioso held onto fourth. Pol Espargaro finished in fifth while Lorenzo took a lonely sixth.
Scott Redding came to life in the closing few laps, the Octo Pramac Yakhnich rider storming through from 13th earlier in the race to finish eighth.
But it was an even more heroic ride for fellow Brit Bradley Smith. The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider made his way through from 14th in the early stages to finish eighth, after making up five positions in the final three laps.
The second Octo Pramac Ducati of Petrucci finished ninth despite his strong start, while hometown hero Jack Miller rounded out the top 10 on his Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS machine.
Eugene Laverty also brought his Pull & Bear Aspar Team Ducati home in the points as he crossed the line 14th.
