Marc Marquez has opened up a 16-point lead in the World Championship battle after securing back-to-back victories with a win at Aragon.Marquez led a Repsol Honda one-two as a resurgent Dani Pedrosa clinched second; Jorge Lorenzo completed the rostrum.
Maverick Vinales was fourth, with the heroic Valentino Rossi battling valiantly for fifth. Andrea Dovizioso lost valuable ground in the title race after fading away to a P7 finish, collecting just nine points in the process.
Lorenzo stormed into the lead from the middle of the front row with Doviziso moving up to third early on as Vinales ran wide at Turn 16.
Rossi, competing just three weeks after breaking his leg, was then in hot pursuit of leader Lorenzo, setting the then fastest lap of the race to halve the deficit to half a second.
The top four of Lorenzo, Rossi, Doviziso, Marquez began to break away as Vinales struggled for pace in P5 and a big train of riders began to form behind him.
Lap 6 brought the first crash of the afternoon as Karel Abraham got a little too greedy at Turn 8. Seconds later, Marquez managed to get the jump on Dovizioso to move up to P3.
The Spaniard then tried a daring move on Rossi at Turn 12 but overshot the corner and re-joined the race in P4 and back behind Dovizioso again.
That did not last long, however, as Marquez soon inched out the Italian at Turn 16/17 to take P3 once more.
With 12 laps ago, Lorenzo started to build up a narrow lead again out in front as Rossi began to fade.
Marquez was hot on Rossi’s heels and produced a carbon copy of his initial overtake on Dovizioso to jump up to P2.
As Marquez got to within a couple of tenths of leader Lorenzo, Pedrosa began to come alive from P5 and took full advantage of Dovizioso running wide at Turn 16.
Back out in front, meanwhile, Marquez made a brilliant overtake on Lorenzo stick at Turn 12, before Lorenzo went briefly ahead again until he overran the corner.
Pedrosa chewed up Rossi to rise to P3 and was just a second and a half behind behind leader Marquez with six laps to go.
Cal Crutchlow then crashed out from P10, while Dovizioso dropped to P6 after Vinales swooped in when Dovizioso ran wide trying to get ahead of Rossi.
Vinales then got the better of Rossi in a ding-dong battle for P4 as Dovizioso slipped even further down the pecking order to P7 as Aleix Espargaro overtook him.
Pedrosa nabbed second from Lorenzo at Turn 12 and had two laps to chase down Marquez, but the latter kept a stable one-second lead all the way to the checkered flag and bagged a fourth win in six races.