Dani Pedrosa ended Marc Márquez’s winning streak to claim his first win of the year, and 26th of his career, in the Czech Republic Grand Prix at Brno.

Márquez arrived at Brno having won all 10 races in 2014 but the reigning World Champion made a poor start from pole position and struggled throughout the race in cool conditions, coming home in fourth position.

Jorge Lorenzo gambled on Soft tyres and secured second place, while the podium was completed by Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi.

Pramac rider Andrea Iannone took the lead at the first corner as Márquez dropped to fourth, behind Andrea Dovizioso and Pedrosa. Lorenzo immediately pounced on the slow-starting Márquez as he went around the outside of his rival at Turn two, a move which cost Márquez momentum and allowed Rossi through.

Lorenzo quickly swept past Pedrosa at the final corner to move into third, before taking the lead on the second lap with a double move on the Ducati pairing as he made the most of his Soft tyres.

Márquez moved ahead of Rossi but as he closed down team-mate Pedrosa he slithered wide, enabling Rossi back through into fifth.

Lorenzo opened up a lead of a second but as soon as Pedrosa demoted the Ducatis, the Honda rider sliced into his compatriot’s advantage, while Márquez moved into third after passing Rossi and Dovizioso, before displacing Iannone in a fierce battle in which the two bikes touched.

Márquez’s battle with Iannone allowed the leading duo to open up a gap of 1.5 seconds, with Pedrosa closing the gap on Lorenzo before he took the lead into Turn two on the fifth lap.

After a frantic start, the race settled down, with Pedrosa leading Lorenzo, a second ahead of Márquez, who pulled Rossi along with him, with the quarter comfortably ahead of Iannone and Dovizioso.

But Márquez struggled to make inroads on Lorenzo and in fact began to lose time to Rossi. With 10 laps remaining Rossi closed up sufficiently and made a move on the Honda driver, demoting Márquez to fourth.

Lorenzo briefly ate into Pedrosa’s advantage but the Honda rider maintained the gap, although an eventual winning margin of 0.410 seconds did not reflect Pedrosa’s control of the race.

Lorenzo finished in second position for Yamaha, while Rossi had a lonely run to third place although he expressed his delight with the result after sustaining a finger injury in Saturday practice.

Márquez was a distant fourth as he finished a MotoGP race outside of the podium positions for the first time in his career. He quickly returned to his pit garage to begin the inquest with his engineers, but he nonetheless retains a healthy advantage in the Championship, 77 points ahead of team-mate Pedrosa.

The Ducati riders were some way behind Márquez but they continued to scrap over fifth place, with their titanic battle eventually settled in Iannone’s favour after he edged out future team-mate Dovizioso.

Stefan Bradl was seventh for LCR Honda, while Aleix Espargaró was eighth, with Bradley Smith and Álvaro Bautista rounding out the top 10.

Cal Crutchlow suffered an early crash on his Ducati but briefly re-joined for a few laps before retiring. Yonny Hernández pulled his bike into the pits to retire with an apparent technical problem.

Pol Espargaró ran in seventh place during the initial stages before he slid out of proceedings, while Michael Laverty was a casualty on the same lap.