Lorenzo Secures Italian GP Win

Lorenzo, the defending world champion took the chequered flag at Mugello ahead of Spanish compatriot Dani Pedrosa and Britain's Cal Crutchlow, who had inherited third after championship leader Marc Marquez crashed out with only three laps to go.

Victory at Mugello was Lorenzo's second win of the season after he won the season opener in Qatar. In the process it moves him up to second in the championship, ahead of Marquez.

Starting second on the grid, behind Pedrosa, the Yamaha rider took the lead going into turn one and led all the way to the end. The two were close together throughout the early laps of the race but on lap fifteen Lorenzo started to open a gap to Pedrosa and Marquez and eventually won by six seconds.

“I tried every lap to open a gap”, Lorenzo said after the race. “Finally in lap 15 I could do it. From there it became easier for me.”

On his first visit to Mugello, on a MotoGP bike, Marquez could only manage sixth in qualifying but showed good pace in the early stages and fought up to third early on in the race. He was able to keep with Pedrosa for a number of laps, and probably could have gone quicker than his team mate if he could have found a way past him. He finally found a way past in the closing laps of the race in a lovely clean move, and soon pulled away from Pedrosa, who was obviously struggling. Unfortunately the front of the bike got away from Marquez and he crashed out of the race, luckily walking away with nothing hurt but his pride, gifting second place to Pedrosa and throwing away his championship position.

Cal Crutchlow claimed his second successive podium after also profiting from Marquez's accident.
“I hate to be gifted a podium, I want to work for it but I definitely worked for it at the end,” said Crutchlow.
“I was close anyway and we did a good job this weekend.”

It was another bad day for local hero Valentino Rossi, the Italian has not won his home race since 2008 and his chances went up in smoke on the very first lap. While fighting with Alvaro Bautista the pair made contact sending both riders off and out of the race.

“We crashed. I didn’t see anything,” Bautista told BBC Sport. “Just when I went in to enter the corner I felt Rossi’s bike and we fell down.” An unfortunate racing incident, but one that deprived the local fans of their hero far too early in the race.

The next stop on the calendar brings the riders and teams back to Spain and the Circuit de Catalunya in two weeks time, when no doubt the major players will be Yamaha and Honda, but who would bet against Cal Crutchlow achieving yet another podium. The three Spanish Moto GP stars will no doubt hope to keep the Brit at bay and claim a home victory.

The Championship is wide open, and we will be reporting on the next thrilling round here at DrivingforPleasure.