Lorenzo Is King Of Spain

Paul Carruthers | May 2, 2010

The battle of Spain went down to the bitter end in today’s Spanish Grand Prix with slow-starter Jorge Lorenzo clashing twice with countryman Dani Pedrosa in the final laps before finally getting the lead and holding it in front of 122,000 fans at the Circuito de Jerez.Lorenzo and his Fiat Yamaha ended the first lap in fourth place from his front-row starting position and he stayed there as Pedrosa shot away with his trademark fast start on the Repsol Honda. And Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and Marlboro Ducati’s Nicky Hayden were between the two Spanish rivals.On the 10th of 27 laps, Lorenzo got past Hayden and started to make inroads to Rossi. With six laps to go the teammates were together and Lorenzo made short work of the World Champion. That set the stage with just a handful of laps to go as Lorenzo moved in for the kill, the two coming together twice on the penultimate lap before Lorenzo finally made a move that stuck on the last go-around.From there it was clear sailing to the finish with Lorenzo earning his first win of the young season to move into the lead in the MotoGP World Championship by four points over Rossi, with the injured Italian ending the race right on Pedrosa’s tail in third place.After two rounds, Lorenzo has 45 points to Rossi’s 41 with Pedrosa moving into third with 29 points.Lorenzo celebrated his home winand the sixth win of his MotoGP career with a jump in the Jerez pond, fully clad in leathers and helmet before joining his fans in more celebration.”It has always been one of my dreams to win a MotoGP race in Spain and this was like a movie, everything that could possibly happen did!” Lorenzo said in a team release. “It was a very hard race because I made such a bad start and then found it very difficult in the first laps – I gave myself a tough job to do. After that I started to feel better and rode like a demon to get to the front. Once I passed Valentino [Rossi] I knew that I couldn’t take it easy, I had to try everything to win and it was all I could think about. I had a great fight with Dani [Pedrosa] and in one moment we nearly crashed so I had to try again, on the very last lap. I know it’s better to win races calmly, from the front, but lately that hasn’t been the way for us and I have had to fight on every lap. I saw the lake on Thursday and thought it would be funny to jump in and I think the fans liked it, but I didn’t really think about how heavy I’d be with wet leathers and for a minute I thought I wasn’t going to get out! This has been an amazing day. I can’t believe I’ve achieved this dream of mine, in front of all the Spanish fans at this magical place.”Hayden continued his strong start to the 2010 season with a fighting fourth place, the Kentuckian not able to stay with the top three but able to hold off his surging teammate Casey Stoner on the final lap. Stoner’s fifth-place was his first finish of the season after the Aussie crashed out of the opener in Qatar while leading.Hayden is now tied for fourth in the championship with Andrea Dovizioso.Dovizioso ended up sixth behind the two factory Ducatis with Pramac Ducati’s Mika Kallio getting the better of a battle with Gresini Honda’s Marco Melandri, LCR’s Randy de Puniet and Marco Simoncelli for seventh. Rizla Suzuki’s Alvaro Bautista ended up 11th with Texan Colin Edwards 12th.Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Ben Spies had his first taste of MotoGP failure as he started fast, ran as high as fifth, but faded and eventually pitted with a front tire issue.Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi crashed out of the race and was a non-finisher.

MotoGP Final

1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)

2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)

3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)

4. Nicky Hayden (Ducati)

5. Casey Stoner (Ducati)

6. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)

7. Mika Kallio (Ducati)

8. Marco Melandri (Honda)

9. Randy de Puniet (Honda)

10. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki)

11. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)