On Lap 12, with Dovi back at the front, the pace then turned up a notch as Dovi and Marquez started to create a gap back to third place Danilo Petrucci (Mission Winnow Ducati). However, the pace then slowed again, Dovizioso going from a 1:55.3 to a 1:56.1 to bring the top eight back to just over a second.

With seven to go, the top eight were covered 1.2 seconds as Rossi started to make up ground, picking off his teammate and Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ecstar) to go up to P6. With three laps to go the fight for the win became a five-way scrap, with Petrucci, Viñales and Mir losing touch.

And so, heading into the last lap, Dovi powered past Marquez into Turn 1 after the reigning World Champion had got the better of his rival on the penultimate lap, with Crutchlow P3, Rins P4 and Rossi P5. Pushing hard, Marquez had a slight moment with the front at Turn 3 before making a lunge up the inside of Dovi at Turn 10, but the Desmosedici was able to cut back up the inside on the exit.

A carbon copy of 12 months ago then played out at the final corner, with Marquez diving through, sitting up Dovi, running wide, with the latter being able to get the drive and power past the Honda on the exit to edge the number 93 to the line by 0.023 seconds. Behind, Crutchlow kept his cool to take a remarkable podium on his first race back since his huge Australian GP crash, with Rins a valiant P4 and Rossi again proving you should never count ‘The Doctor’ out in P5 from P14 on the grid.