Barcelona MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo beats Hondas to win
Jorge Lorenzo rode an immaculate race to claim MotoGP victory at Barcelona
Lorenzo sprinted off the line, almost banging into the side of polesitter Dani Pedrosa as they jostled for position into Turn 1. Meanwhile Marc Marquez was dive-bombing down the inside to take third from sixth on the grid.
For the opening five laps there was a lead pack of five bikes, with Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi tagged onto the back of the Spanish trio.
But through the tight left-hander at Turn 6 the front of Crutchlow's Tech 3 Yamaha got away from him and he slid into the gravel and out of the race.
Just seconds later he was joined in the kitty litter by the Ducati of Nicky Hayden who retired from sixth place in almost identical fashion at Turn 10.
The lead three edged away from Rossi in fourth. There was seldom much between them, but the positions never actually changed.
With seven laps to go Lorenzo upped the pace and stretched his advantage over Pedrosa past a second.
Pedrosa had his hands full defending from Marquez rather than working on a move for the lead.
Heading into the penultimate lap there was nothing to separate the Honda pair, and they actually touched. They both kept control, and a charging final lap by Marquez took him right back to the tail of his championship-leading team-mate.
For the second race in a row Rossi had an opening lap clash with Alvaro Bautista. This time he was able to continue, while Bautista was left ruing the loss of a good result after qualifying strongly in fourth.
Rossi showed strong pace at the end of the race, but was almost six seconds behind his victorious team-mate by the flag.
Stefan Bradl had a quiet run to fifth, while in sixth Bradley Smith had his best Moto GP run to date, passing Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso with a lap to go. Aleix Espargaro was the top CRT finisher in eighth.
Results - 25 laps: Pos Rider Team/Bike Time/Gap 1. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 43m06.479s 2. Dani Pedrosa Honda + 1.763s 3. Marc Marquez Honda + 1.826s 4. Valentino Rossi Yamaha + 5.874s 5. Stefan Bradl LCR Honda + 26.756s 6. Bradley Smith Tech 3 Yamaha + 32.228s 7. Andrea Dovizioso Ducati + 32.692s 8. Aleix Espargaro Aspar Aprilia + 58.615s 9. Colin Edwards Forward FTR-Kawasaki + 1m03.142s 10. Michele Pirro Pramac Ducati + 1m09.774s 11. Danilo Petrucci Ioda-Suter-BM + 1m24.377s 12. Claudio Corti Forward FTR-Kawasaki + 1m33.679s 13. Yonny Hernandez PBM Aprilia + 1m45.355s 14. Bryan Staring Gresini FTR-Honda + 1m50.745s 15. Javier del Amor Avinitia FTR-Kawasak + 1 Lap 16. Lukas Pesek Ioda-Suter-BMW + 1 Lap Retirements: Hector Barbera Avinitia FTR-Kawasaki 15 laps Karel Abraham Cardion Aprilia 10 laps Cal Crutchlow Tech 3 Yamaha 5 laps Nicky Hayden Ducati 5 laps Andrea Iannone Pramac Ducati 4 laps Randy de Puniet Aspar Aprilia 1 lap Alvaro Bautista Gresini Honda 0 laps Michael Laverty PBM-Aprilia 0 laps
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