Marc Marquez further extended his championship lead over second placed Jorge Lorenzo with an inspired victory at the Sachsenring for the German round of the MotoGP championship.
The Honda rider started from pole position in wet conditions as the heavens opened before lights out, but a switch to full wet tyres saw him drop down the field before a mistake at Turn 8, which saw him run off into the gravel, dropped him out of the top ten.
That forced Marquez to take a risky strategy move with an early switch to the slick tyre as the track showed signs of drying out. It was a risk that would pay off, with the Spaniard taking back the lead and opening up a massive ten second advantage over LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow.
Timing was everything. Andrea Dovizioso looked set to take the win – his first since 2009 – but he switched to the slicks too late and lost the lead, dropping to third come the checkered flag.
Pramac's Danilo Petrucci also looked like a candidate for victory having led the race before he crashed out. His team-mate Scott Redding would go on to finish fourth.
Another rider to get the timing of their slick stop wrong was Valentino Rossi. The Italian was in a battle with Dovizioso and Crutchlow for the lead, but stopped later than them and paid the price as Rossi would go on to finish only eighth, but it helped him to close the championship gap to his team-mate to just 11 points in second and third.
Lorenzo's nightmare weekend continued as scored just a single point for 15th place as he struggled to keep pace in the latter stages of the race, despite running in the top ten for the first half.
Local rider Stefan Bradl was forced to miss him home race after a fall during the warm-up. He was taken to the local hospital for a CT scan after suffering a concussion in the crash.
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