Marc Marquez denied Fabio Quartararo once again as he eased to his 12th win of the year at the MotoGP season finale at Valencia.
The world champion had work to do early on as he made a poor start from second on the grid, dropping to sixth behind Maverick Vinales as the field cleared Turn 1.
He then worked with his way through his rivals in fornt with his usual precison, passing Andrea Dovizioso for third into Turn 1 heading on to the second tour.
He then caught and passed Jack Miller for second by the end of the lap, quickly turning his sights onto leader Fabio Quartararo.
The Honda man closed down the Petronas SRT’s advantage bit by bit before over the subsequent laps, before choosing move his RC213-V into the lead as Miller began to close in with just over two-thirds of the contest remaining.
Quartararo was powerless to resist, and despite hanging on less than a second behind Marquez for the majority of the rest of the race, was unable to make an impression as the Spaniard extended his advantage to over 1.5 seconds across the closing laps to ultimately take the chequered flag 1.026 seconds clear of Quartararo.
Miller meanwhile put in another strong performance to bag his second rostrum result in three races, the Aussie chasing Quartararo for the runners-up spot in the closing stanza.
The Pramac man edged closer and closer to the rear of the M1 ahead, but just came up short of being able to challenge for the position.
Dovizioso held off Suzuki’s Alex Rins for fourth meanwhile, the Italian just staying out of range of the chasing GSX-RR across the distance to keep up his record of finishing in the top seven in every race he has finished this year.
Maverick Vinales had a disappointing race to seventh after failing to replicate the blistering speed he had displayed across Friday and Satirday, while Joan Mir brought the second Suzuki home seventh.
Valentino Rossi once again struggled to keep up with the front runners, crossing the line nearly 20 seconds down on race winning Marquez-19 down on Quartaro’s satellite Yamaha machine.
The Aprilia duo of Andrea Iannone and Aleix Epsargaro battled for supremacy in their own contest with KTM’s Pol Espargaro for ninth in the closing stages, with Iannone looking set to secure the place.
He then crashed out on the final lap, leaving team-mate Espargaro to lead home brother Pol on his RC16 to close out the top ten.
Jorge Lorenzo meanwhile came home a lonely 13th in his final MotoGP race, the three-time premier class champion struggling for speed but managing to bring his Honda home as many other riders faltered in the colder conditions.
Franco Morbidelli threw away sixth late on as he crashed out just ahead of Vinales while Johann Zarco, Danilo Petrucci and Iker Lecuona all went down at Turn 7 in strangely similar circumstances.
The trio tucked the fronts of their respective machines while all being nowhere near each other on track, Lecuona’s KTM even collecting Zarco as he trudged away through the gravel.
The collision caused the Frenchman to be flipped in the air, but he was thankfully uninjured and returned to his garage after a quick check over at the medical centre.
Marquez’s win also means that Honda snatch the teams championship away from Ducati-who held a two-point lead heading into the Valencia event, while Vianles’ sixth place was enough to keep his third place in the overall riders championship-six points clear of Rins.
Marquez furthermore becomes the first rider ever to score more than 400 points in a single season, his end of year tally standing at 420 with his Valencia triumph.
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