Lorenzo: New maturity key to victory

Although Lorenzo's Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi took pole and led the first half of the race, the Spaniard was content to bide his time behind the world champion before passing Rossi and pulling away to win.

"If this had happened to me three or four years ago, maybe I would have done some crazy thing," said Lorenzo.

"I now feel much more confident, now I can be more calm and ride better. Today was good for that.

"I was patient, I understood that Valentino would brake so late, so I waited for one mistake from him. He doesn't do many mistakes, so I just waited, and tried to exit the corners as close to him as possible. When I made it, it was easier than I expected."

The Spaniard's first ever back to back wins in MotoGP have seen him take an early championship lead by nine points over Rossi, while their anticipated title rival Casey Stoner is now 59 points adrift having crashed out of two of the three races held so far this season.

Lorenzo believes Stoner's chances are already fading - but that is vital that he and Rossi maintain their current consistency.

"I think for this championship it's important not to crash, and to finish all the races," said Lorenzo.

"Casey is so fast, so aggressive, but he's crashed twice in three races. For sure he will need to win a lot of races to recover the points. I think Valentino and myself have this reliability at the moment."

After qualifying Lorenzo had expressed his determination not to lose ground and the start and have to fight through the field - as he had needed to do when winning at Jerez three weeks earlier. This time he only lost out to Dani Pedrosa off the line, but warned that he was not yet confident his starting issues were resolved.

"Finally we made a good start. I can't say that we've solved this problem because only one good start doesn't mean anything," said Lorenzo.

"But fortunately I started well and I didn't lose so much time in the first few laps."