Brno MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo cruises to seventh win

Jorge Lorenzo stamped his authority all over the MotoGP world championship again this afternoon with yet another convincing victory in Brno.

The Spaniard became only the third rider in history to claim first or second place in the opening ten races after he demolished the field to notch his seventh victory.

Once Lorenzo had expertly guided his Fiat Yamaha under a fast starting Dani Pedrosa on the opening lap, the 23-year-old produced another masterclass in leading from the front. 

Lorenzo secured the 12th premier class win of his career with a devastating surge from lap eight onwards that crushed Pedrosa’s dogged resistance.

Lorenzo edged out to a 0.625s lead over his great Spanish rival and took another 0.3s out of the Repsol Honda rider on lap nine.

Lorenzo established a lead of over a second for the first time on lap 11 when he pulled 1.293s clear as it became obvious that Pedrosa had no answer to his mid-race attack.

Three laps later and Lorenzo was over two seconds clear and he cruised to his 33rd career win to extend his dominant points lead over compatriot Pedrosa to 77-points with just eight races remaining.

Lorenzo has only dropped 15 out of 250 points up for grabs in 2010 and his success today was the 50th MotoGP win for Spain.

Pedrosa’s second place was never in any serious danger as he held a comfortable lead of over five seconds over factory Ducati rider Casey Stoner.

The Aussie was able to score his fifth successive rostrum with relative ease as well after he’d had little trouble in disposing of the threat of impressive rookie Ben Spies.

Starting the 22-lap race from the front row of the grid for the first time in his career, the Texan made a lightning start and was only beaten by the traditionally fast starting Pedrosa in the long run to the first corner.

The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider took second spot from Pedrosa on the opening lap but the triple world champion quickly retaliated with a counter attack on lap two.
The reigning World Superbike champion simply couldn’t match the speed of the Spanish duo at the front and as he tried to consolidate his place in the top three, the 26-year-old quickly fell back into the clutches of Stoner.

Spies held on until lap nine when Stoner pounced and the 2007 world champion was able to comfortably move clear of the American, who settled for fourth. Stoner’s third moved him into third place in the overall standings after an early blunder by Repsol Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso.

The Italian was in fourth place and looking to hunt down Spies when he crashed out on lap four.

The former 125GP world champion came to a rest alongside his factory Honda RC212V in the middle of the track and narrowly avoided being struck by the chasing pack. He remounted but quickly retired.

Valentino Rossi was lucky not to collide with Dovizioso but his hopes of emulating his stunning Laguna Seca podium were effectively over before the second corner.

The Italian got a shocking start and was only eighth at the end of the first lap. He passed Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden but finished in a distant fifth.

Loris Capirossi escaped unhurt from a crash on lap two when he was 15th. Mika Kallio was unscathed after he tumbled out of ninth on lap eight.

Luckless Alvaro Bautista suffered another heavy fall at the penultimate corner on the final lap after he’d just passed Marco Simoncelli for a heroic 11th.

Randy de Puniet claimed tenth place on his brave return to action just 28 days after he broke his right leg in two places at Sachsenring.

Today’s 22-lap race was hardly a great advert for MotoGP with the field strung out in front a large but uninspired crowd.

The top six were split by nearly 27 seconds and the closest gap in the top eight was Spies finishing 2.297s behind Stoner. The top ten were covered by a massive 40.893s.