MotoGP World Championship leader Marc Marquez extended his lead atop the World Championship after a dominant win at the Czech Grand Prix in Brno.
A small shower between the Moto2 race finishing and the MotoGP race meant that the start/finish straight and the first and final corners were soaking wet, but the rest of the circuit was bone dry. This led to a 40-minute delay, however, once they got going, there was no stopping Marquez.
Starting from pole position and the drier side of the track, Marquez got a fantastic start and led from the off. Despite Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso sitting close in behind him, Marquez looked in total control. Sitting approximately a second ahead of Dovizioso for the first half of the race, as tyres started to fall away, Marquez started to pull away by a couple of tenths each lap.
There was a small scare for the World Champion at the downhill turn nine when he nearly lost the front end of his factory RC213V, but the Spaniard continued to pull away, before crossing the line standing on his foot-pegs, arms wide open for his 50th career MotoGP victory.
Behind Marquez it was a return to the podium for Dovizioso who took twenty valuable World Championship points to further consolidate his second place in the World Championship, albeit 63 points behind Marquez.
Jack Miller managed to over-take Alex Rins on the penultimate lap for his second podium of the year, with the Suzuki man settling for fourth, but relieved to see the chequered flag after two costly DNF’s before the summer break.
Cal Crutchlow was fifth on his LCR Honda, a few seconds ahead of the Yamaha duo of Valentino Rossi and Fabio Quartararo, who came home in sixth and seventh respectively. Danilo Petrucci was eighth, with Taka Nakagami and Maverick Vinales rounding out the top ten.
Pol Espargaro ran as high as fifth in the early stages of the race, however he ended up bringing him RC-16 home in eleventh place. Pecco Bagnaia was twelfth, with Miguel Oliveira, front row starter Johann Zarco and Stefan Bradl rounding out the point scorers.
