Imperious Marquez makes it nine straight wins at Sachsenring

Full MotoGP race results from Sachsenring

Marc Marquez produced an untouchable performance to secure his ninth consecutive win at Sachsenring to extend his MotoGP world championship lead to 46 points over Valentino Rossi who provided his nearest challenge in second place.

With a flawless record at the German track, having secured his ninth straight pole position on Saturday, the Repsol Honda rider measured his pace having dropped to third place into the first turn behind the fast-starting Ducati duo of Danilo Petrucci and Jorge Lorenzo.

Having made quick work of getting past Petrucci for second place at the start of lap five, Marquez stalked Lorenzo to gauge the factory Ducati rider's strengths with tyre wear which was set to be pivotal to race pace.

Approaching mid-race distance Marquez made his move into the lead diving up the inside of Lorenzo at the final corner to allow him to demonstrate why he’s dominated the German track for close to a decade.

Measuring his pace to keep clear of the chasing pack, with Rossi skating into second after Lorenzo suffered a front-end slide, Marquez was able to clear off heading into the final 10 laps having looked after his soft rear tyre.

While Marquez successfully nursed his tyres, Lorenzo suffered a late race fade nightmare as he blee time to his rivals dropping from a likely podium down to a disappointing sixth place.

That enabled Maverick Vinales to use his strong late pace, having dropped to eighth after the opening laps, to battle past Petrucci on the penultimate lap to complete a double podium for Movistar Yamaha behind team-mate Rossi, with the Italian securing his best result of the year.

With Petrucci just missing out on the podium, Alvaro Bautista produced his best result of the year to take fifth place for Angel Nieto Ducati beating both factory Ducati riders Lorenzo in sixth and Andrea Dovizioso in seventh.

Further back, Dani Pedrosa held off a race-long battle with Tech3 Yamaha’s Johann Zarco to take eighth place on the weekend he confirmed his retirement from MotoGP at the end of the season.

Red Bull KTM’s Bradley Smith matched his team’s best result of 2018 in 10^th place ahead of top rookie Hafizh Syahrin on the Tech3 Yamaha.

After a poor start Andrea Iannone battled up to 12^th place for Suzuki, having seen team-mate Alex Rins tangle with Red Bull KTM’s Pol Espargaro on the opening lap which also pushed Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati) into the gravel, as Tito Rabat (Avintia Ducati), Miller and Scott Redding (Aprilia) rounded out the points places.

Franco Morbidelli’s stand-in Stefan Bradl just missed out on points for Marc VDS Honda but finished comfortably ahead of team-mate Thomas Luthi and Ducati GP16-riding duo Karel Abraham and Xavier Simeon.

Both LCR Honda riders Cal Crutchlow and Taakai Nakagami crashed out of the race, while Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro missed the race after suffering a heavy fall during morning warm-up which saw him taken to hospital by helicopter.