Marc Márquez maintained his unbeaten start to the 2014 season as he claimed his fourth successive victory at Jerez.

Márquez, who had never previously won at the Spanish circuit in any category, beat Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa to claim victory on his 100th Grand Prix start.

The majority of the action occurred across the opening couple of laps as Andrea Dovizioso briefly took the lead from Márquez, but the Italian rider ran deep into the first corner and allowed the reigning champion back through. Rossi took the lead down into the hairpin but Márquez muscled his way through at the final corner, before the #46 Yamaha briefly re-took the advantage. Márquez subsequently battled his way back through and rapidly opened up a lead to pull away from Rossi.

Rossi, Lorenzo and Pedrosa lapped at a similar pace until Lorenzo began to slip back and he was eventually passed by the Honda rider, who started to hunt down Rossi. Pedrosa got the gap down to a couple of tenths of a second but ultimately had to settle for third.

Lorenzo came home in fourth, while Dovizioso led a close scrap for fifth as he led a train of bikes across the line on the final lap. The Ducati rider, Álvaro Bautista, Aleix Espargaró and Bradley Smith were all separated by less than a second, while Tech 3’s Pol Espargaró and LCR’s Stefan Bradl rounded out the top 10.

British rider Cal Crutchlow was an early retirement after a front brake problem with his Ducati, while team-mate Michele Pirro crashed out of the race. Andrea Iannone suffered a low side at the hairpin while Mike Di Meglio pulled into the pits with a suspected mechanical problem. Danilo Petrucci did not start after breaking his wrist during the warm-up earlier in the day.

Márquez’s fourth straight win means he now leads the championship by 28 points, with Rossi 39 points behind in third. Lorenzo is now 65 points down on Márquez.

Results - 27 laps

Pos Rider             Bike                   Time/Gap
 1. Marc Marquez      Honda                45m24.134s
 2. Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                  +1.431s
 3. Dani Pedrosa      Honda                   +1.529s
 4. Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                  +8.541s
 5. Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                 +27.494s
 6. Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda          +27.606s
 7. Aleix Espargaro   Forward Yamaha         +27.917s
 8. Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha          +27.947s
 9. Pol Espargaro     Tech 3 Yamaha          +29.419s
10. Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda              +32.872s
11. Nicky Hayden      Aspar Honda            +35.490s
12. Hiroshi Aoyama    Aspar Honda            +40.083s
13. Scott Redding     Gresini Honda          +43.830s
14. Yonny Hernandez   Pramac Ducati          +52.295s
15. Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki   +54.873s
16. Michael Laverty   PBM Aprilia          +1m06.182s
17. Broc Parkes       PBM Aprilia          +1m23.420s

Retirements/not classified

    Colin Edwards     Forward Yamaha          26 laps
    Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati           22 laps
    Mike di Meglio    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki    21 laps
    Karel Abraham     Cardion Honda           10 laps
    Cal Crutchlow     Ducati                   4 laps
    Michele Pirro     Ducati                   2 laps