MotoGP Austin race
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Vinales is down!
Karel Abraham has crashed. He's already nursing a fractured ankle after clashing with tea-mate Alvaro Bautista in practice on Friday.
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Zarco fired up the inside of Lorenzo's Ducati at Turn 18. Another strong start for the dual Moto2 world champion.
Vinales gets back past at the next corner, Turn 13, though and grabs fourth back. Pedrosa leads Marquez, Rossi, Vinales, Zarco - now past Lorenzo as well - Crutchlow, Dovizioso, Folger and Miller.
Vinales wastes little time getting past Lorenzo, only for the Ducati to fly back past on the back straight.
Marquez slots into second, ahead of Rossi and Lorenzo, Vinales dropped to fifth.
Marquez and Vinales are away cleanly, but Pedrosa flies around the outside of them both at Turn 1 to take the lead.
Green flag
The 21-lap race is go!
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The grid is clear and riders are now off for the formation lap.
At the opposite end of the grid, we have Pol and Aleix Espargaro. Pol crashed his KTM, while Aleix had what he considered one of the worst days of his MotoGP career, crashing three times, having an engine let go on him and being taken the wrong/long way back to the paddock when he was trying to get back for qualifying.
This is your front row, will it be the same three on the podium in 21 laps' time? Pic: LAT
Crutchlow crashed late in qualifying, missing out on what he thought was an easy front-row start and he'll start ninth. Getting past the Ducatis ahead will be tough, he reckons, while Crutchlow believes Honda stablemate Dani Pedrosa is quicker than he's shown this weekend.
If everything goes as expected, we'll just about have two races today. One with Marquez and Vinales and - very maybe - Rossi at the front, and then the fight between the rest. Cal Crutchlow reckons that will be a "lottery", given how close it has been.
A bit of pre-race pageantry with the US national anthem and a military flyover, with just over five minutes to go before we get going.
Autosport
We will have 22 riders in action today rather than the regular 23. Suzuki rookie Alex Rins crashed during third practice yesterday morning and broke his wrist. He's set to miss several races: 
Autosport
The Yamaha pair nearly clashed on track during qualifying, with Vinales remonstrating at Rossi, after being delayed on a hotlap: 
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Autosport
It's been a tough start to Lorenzo's Ducati career. As you can imagine he was pretty happy about qualifying sixth: 
Valentino Rossi completes the front row, then it's Dani Pedrosa, Johann Zarco and Jorge Lorenzo on the second row.
Autosport
If you missed qualifying last night, Marquez beat Vinales in a qualifying shootout by 0.130 seconds: 
Could this be the first time Marc Marquez and Maverick Vinales really go head-to-head at the front of a MotoGP field? It looks that way, they will start first and second, and there's a big gap back to the rest.
The start of the race is a little over 10 minutes away, skies are sunny. Air temperature is 21.6C, track temperature is 38C.
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Green flag
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the third round of the 2017 MotoGP season at Austin.
By: Mitchell Adam
Published:
Lap:
