Andrea Dovizioso Holds Off Marc Marquez to Win 2017 MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix

Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso grabbed victory in the 2017 MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday after holding off Honda's Marc Marquez in a fantastic battle.

The two men moved to the front of the pack midway through the race, and both led at certain stages of the contest. However, the Italian eventually did enough, taking his third win of a fascinating season.

Honda's Dani Pedrosa was third, recovering from eighth on the grid, while Yamaha's Valentino Rossi was a disappointing seventh.                

The result actually sees Marquez extend his championship lead to 16 points, with Dovizioso moving up into second place ahead of Maverick Vinales, who was sixth at the Red Bull Ring.

It was Jorge Lorenzo who got off to the fastest start, moving ahead of Marquez into first place. Vinales, meanwhile, ran wide at Turn 1 and lost time on his rivals.

Things were extremely tight at the front of the field, though, as we can see courtesy of the MotoGP Twitter feed:

Dovizioso and Marquez were engaged in a gripping battle for second spot. The former was able to edge past the Spaniard, although he couldn't maintain position, with the Honda man wrestling the spot back; that would prove to be the theme of the afternoon.

With both men going flat out, they moved up on to the back of Lorenzo up front, who was beginning to lose grip in the soft tyres. Marquez and Dovizioso were able to pass him as a result, although a blanket still could have been tossed over the front six.

As we can see here, courtesy of journalist Simon Patterson, the trio of leaders were three abreast at times:

Having moved to the front, for the first time in the race, Marquez and Dovizioso were able to put some daylight between themselves and the rest of the field.

Further back, the perils of a tight race caught up with Rossi, who made an almost identical error to Yamaha team-mate Vinales at Turn 1. That pushed him back down into seventh and a long way away from a podium finish.

Up front, Lorenzo was going backwards quickly as Pedrosa took third, while Dovizioso continued to pressure Marquez; eventually it told, as the Spaniard made an error at Turn 3, allowing the Ducati man through:

That move was the trigger for a brilliant scrap between the pair, with Marquez retaking and then surrendering the lead. The duo then exchanged places a couple more times, as they pushed their respective bikes to the limit of the circuit.

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As the laps ticked down, Dovizioso was able to find some consistency at the head of the race, and Marquez became increasingly desperate in his moves, making some mistakes as a result. But he was in a position good enough to launch one last desperate attack on the final corner, as we can see:

Dovizioso was alert to the danger, though, keeping his cool to win for the third time in 2017. The VR|46 Vanguard INA Twitter account praised the Ducati men's effort on the final lap:

While Marquez extends his lead with this win, Dovizioso offered a reminder that he's a rider with the talent to win this world title.

This victory, and especially the manner of it, will give him a lot of confidence in the weeks to come. It's imperative the Italian continues to apply pressure at the British Grand Prix in a fortnight's time.