Lorenzo takes dominant Estoril win

The Spaniard, who qualified on pole yesterday, lost a position to perfect starter Dani Pedrosa when the lights went out, but regained the lead during the first lap and never looked back. He increased the gap consistently to win by a margin of over six seconds.

Rossi, by contrast, had a lonely and disappointing race to a distant fourth place that saw him lose up to one second per lap and more importantly 12 points to Lorenzo in the championship table, with the lead now reduced to 18 points with three races to go this season.

But the highlight of the race was Casey Stoner, whose return after a three-race break saw him taking a strong second place with his Ducati, after the Australian made successful overtaking manoeuvres on Colin Edwards, Rossi, and Dani Pedrosa in the opening laps.

Pedrosa took the final podium position with his Honda, albeit 3.5 seconds behind Stoner, but a massive 13 seconds before Rossi.

Tech 3 Yamaha's Edwards finished fifth, ahead of a hard fighting Toni Elias, who made plenty of passes with his Gresini Honda from 13th on the grid.

Honda's Andrea Dovizioso finished seventh, followed by Ducati's Nicky Hayden, Tech 3 Yamaha's James Toseland, and Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen completing the top ten.

Mika Kallio crashed his Pramac Ducati out of sixth place on lap six, while de Angelis retired his Gresini Honda on lap eight and Loris Capirossi did the same with his Suzuki later in the race.

Pos  Rider             Bike                Time/Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha            45m35.522s
 2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati              + 6.294s
 3.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda               + 9.889s
 4.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             + 23.428s
 5.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      + 32.652s
 6.  Toni Elias        Gresini Honda      + 35.709s
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              + 35.723s
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             + 38.830s
 9.  James Toseland    Tech 3 Yamaha      + 44.093s
10.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki             + 52.863s
11.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          + 55.698s
12.  Marco Melandri    Hayate Kawasaki  + 1m04.515s
13.  Niccolo Canepa    Pramac Ducati    + 1m04.538s
14.  Gabor Talmacsi    Scot Honda       + 1m27.299s

Retirements:

     Loris Capirossi   Suzuki           22 laps
     Alex de Angelis   Gresini Honda    9 laps
     Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati    6 laps