Lorenzo takes dominant home win

The Yamaha rider was embroiled in a close battle for the lead with Andrea Dovizioso, but was left with a huge advantage when the Honda rider crashed at half distance, eventually winning by 4.754s.

Prior to Dovizioso's crash, which was a result of a low-side at La Caixa, he and Lorenzo had been separated by just a few metres, and the battle for the lead had, in fact, also featured Casey Stoner before the Ducati rider ran wide at the first corner on lap six and dropped to fifth behind Dani Pedrosa and Randy de Puniet.

Pedrosa had himself run wide at the same corner on the opening lap, undoing a sensational start that had taken the Honda rider into the lead from the second row of the grid, and dropping him to 11th.

He had made it back up to fifth by the end of the first lap, and gained one spot when Stoner had his moment. Both he and the Australian had robbed de Puniet of position by lap nine and squabbled over what soon became second for the rest of the race.

Pedrosa eventually secured the spot, which kept him second in the world championship, but an increased 52 points behind Lorenzo, whose win was his fifth of the 2010 season.

De Puniet came home a season's best fourth ahead of Alvaro Bautista - the Spaniard taking the best finish of his career. His Suzuki team-mate Loris Capirossi had been on course for sixth, but lost a spot to Ben Spies's Tech 3 Yamaha with three laps to go after running wide.

Ducati rider Nicky Hayden passed Marco Melandri for eighth with two laps left, the Gresini Honda belying a broken sternum to miss out on the position by just a tenth of a second.

Hector Barbera (Aspar Ducati) completed the top 10 while, after remounting, Dovizioso finished 14th. Marco Simoncelli was on course for an easy sixth when his Gresini Honda ground to a halt at half-distance while local rider Aleix Espargaro crashed his Pramac Ducati out of the top 10 on lap six.

Pos  Rider             Team                  Time/Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha              43m22.805s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 + 4.754s
 3.  Casey Stoner      Ducati                + 4.956s
 4.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda            + 18.057s
 5.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki               + 21.361s
 6.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha        + 21.503s
 7.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki               + 24.181s
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati               + 27.941s
 9.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda        + 28.046s
10.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati         + 32.439s
11.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha        + 38.406s
12.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati        + 58.257s
13.  Kousuke Akiyoshi  Interwetten Honda  + 1m09.348s
14.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              + 1m32.402s
15.  Wataru Yoshikawa  Yamaha             + 1m35.237s

Retirements:

     Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      13 laps
     Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      5 laps