Silverstone MotoGP: Marc Marquez beats Jorge Lorenzo to victory

Lorenzo - who had won three of the four Silverstone MotoGP races so far - thrust his Yamaha down the inside at Copse on the first lap to take the lead from Marquez's Honda.

The pair stayed absolutely glued together for the whole race, the gap between them always between 0.2 and 0.3 seconds.

Marquez made his first move with seven of the 20 laps left, slicing down the inside of Lorenzo at Stowe.

But he couldn't get away, and when he ran wide at the same spot two laps later, Lorenzo was back through.

Marquez had to go back on the attack, and with three laps to go he squeezed alongside at Village.

Somehow Lorenzo held on around the outside as they made light contact, but Marquez would not be denied and hurled his Honda through into The Loop.

He made a very slight break thereafter to win his 11th race from 12 rounds in 2014.

Valentino Rossi completed the podium on the second Yamaha after a superb race-long scrap with Dani Pedrosa's Honda and Andrea Dovizioso's Ducati.

Pedrosa made it up to third at half-distance and looked like pulling clear, but he could not shake off his rivals and briefly fell to fifth again before repassing Dovizioso and making a final unsuccessful bid to unseat Rossi.

Bradley Smith was looking good for sixth early on, only for a wheel problem to cost him two laps in the pits.

His Tech 3 Yamaha team-mate Pol Espargaro ended up taking the spot after a dice with Andrea Iannone and Alvaro Bautista, with the latter crashing out at the end.

Aleix Espargaro ran as high as third on the opening lap, but gradually faded back to ninth at the finish.

Scott Redding emerged as top Brit in 10th, defeating Yonny Hernandez and Cal Crutchlow's Ducatis to take the spot on his production-spec Gresini Honda.

Fellow Britons Leon Camier and Michael Laverty finished their home race just outside the points in 16th and 17th respectively.

Results - 20 laps:

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike               Time/Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 40m51.835s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                   +0.732s
 3.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                   +8.519s
 4.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                    +8.694s
 5.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                   +9.238s
 6.  Pol Espargaro     Tech 3 Yamaha           +24.746s
 7.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda               +26.717s
 8.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati           +26.910s
 9.  Aleix Espargaro   Forward Yamaha          +33.455s
10.  Scott Redding     Gresini Honda           +39.094s
11.  Yonny Hernandez   Pramac Ducati           +40.255s
12.  Cal Crutchlow     Ducati                  +43.027s
13.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Honda           +52.245s
14.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Aspar Honda             +58.981s
15.  Alex de Angelis   Forward Yamaha          +59.164s
16.  Leon Camier       Aspar Honda           +1m05.680s
17.  Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia           +1m10.939s
18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Aprilia          +1m16.834s
19.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  +1m16.904s
20.  Mike di Meglio    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  +1m34.939s
21.  Broc Parkes       PBM-Aprilia           +1m38.442s
22.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha             -1 lap

Retirements:

     Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda            18 laps