Lorenzo wins at Indy as rivals fall

The result means that the Yamaha rider has now halved the disadvantage he had from championship leader and team-mate Rossi to 25 points.

Spain's Lorenzo kept his head cool and first witnessed pole-sitter Pedrosa dropping his Honda from the lead on lap four of the 28-lap race. The former 125 and 250cc world champion eventually managed to rejoin the track in last place and set off to salvage some points, which in the end he did by ending up tenth.

It was then Rossi's turn to lead, but Lorenzo overtook him on lap nine, just one lap before the Italian lost the front of his Yamaha M1 bike while entering turn 2. The seven-time champion, too, managed to rejoin, but the crash damaged his throttle and forced him to retire within two laps.

From then on, Lorenzo had a comfortable lead of around 10 seconds over Alex de Angelis, which he maintained to the end of the race.

De Angelis took his maiden MotoGP podium thanks to an excellent performance that began in qualifying, when the San Marino rider put his Gresini Honda on the fourth slot of the grid. The start saw him losing one place to Colin Edwards' Tech 3 Yamaha, but he duly regained position within six laps and then managed to open a gap over his rivals towards the end of the race.

The last podium place went to Nicky Hayden, who resisted race-long pressure from Honda's Andrea Dovizioso to score his best ever result for Ducati in front of his home crowd.

Dovizioso thus ended up fourth, just half a second behind the American, with Texan Edwards fifth, 12 seconds further back.

James Toseland, on the second Tech 3 Yamaha, classified sixth ahead of Loris Capirossi's Suzuki and Mika Kallio's factory Ducati, with Toni Elias (Gresini Honda) and Pedrosa completing the top 10.

Marco Melandri suffered a major high-side late in the race when his Hayate Kawasaki was in seventh place, while Niccolo Canepa's Pramac Ducati broke down.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider             Team             Time
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha           47m13.592s
 2.  Alex de Angelis   Gresini Honda    +   9.435s
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati           +  12.947s
 4.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda            +  13.478s
 5.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha    +  26.254s
 6.  James Toseland    Tech 3 Yamaha    +  32.408s
 7.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki           +  34.400s
 8.  Mika Kallio       Ducati           +  34.856s
 9.  Toni Elias        Gresini Honda    +  45.005s
10.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda            +  45.377s
11.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki           +  45.478s
12.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda        +  52.294s
13.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati    +1m03.552s
14.  Gabor Talmacsi    Scot Honda       +1m15.086s

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider             Bike             Laps
     Marco Melandri    Hayate Kawasaki   25
     Niccolo Canepa    Pramac Ducati     23
     Valentino Rossi   Yamaha            12

FASTEST LAP: Lorenzo, 1m40.152s on lap 4