Marc Márquez maintained his 100 per cent victory record for the season after coming out on top in a thrilling battle at the Indianapolis Grand Prix.

The Repsol Honda rider got the better of factory Yamaha rivals Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi in a huge midway scrap, before gradually pulling away to take the chequered flag. 

It was Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso who made the best of starts to jump into the lead off the line, before Rossi slipped up the inside of his fellow Italian at the second corner.

Márquez was back in fourth at this point, having also fallen behind Pramac rider Andrea Iannone.

Dovizioso, running a softer rear tyre compound, soon started to apply pressure on Rossi and found himself in a position to make a move out of the slipstream at the start of Lap 6. But the pair touched when Rossi tried to reclaim the position at Turn 2, allowing Márquez and Lorenzo – who had both passed Iannone – through.

The lead was back in Rossi’s hands before the quartet made it back to the start/finish line, however, with the seven-time MotoGP champion repassing team-mate Lorenzo and taking advantage of a rare Márquez mistake.

A few laps later, Lorenzo got a run on Márquez out of the final corner and duly jumped ahead into Turn 1, but Márquez braked so late that he not only fended him off, he was also able to dive past race leader Rossi.

With Rossi getting nudged wide in the process, Lorenzo gained the position he had initially been fighting for.

Márquez was unchallenged in the following laps, building up a comfortable lead to secure his 10th win from as many races, while Lorenzo responded to any surges in pace from Rossi to hold on to the runner-up spot.

Dani Pedrosa had a lonely afternoon en route to fourth, ahead of Tech 3 Yamaha team-mates Pol Espargaró and Bradley Smith, the Briton battling through the pain of a finger injury after his nasty qualifying accident.

After his lively start, Dovizioso lost pace and had to settle for seventh. Fellow works Ducati rider Cal Crutchlow kept Gresini’s Scott Redding at bay for eighth, the pair separated by just seven tenths of a second.

Aspar rider Hiroshi Aoyama completed the top 10 positions in a race which featured a host of retirements.

Gresini’s Álvaro Bautista and Pramac’s Yonny Hernández clashed on the opening lap of the race, Iannone was forced to pull off the track with mechanical problems after running as high as third in the early stages, while LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl suffered a dramatic crash following contact with Forward Racing’s Aleix Espargaró.

MotoGP debutant Leon Camier, Avintia’s Héctor Barberá and Ioda’s Danilo Petrucci all pitted with issues.