Reigning MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo cruised to the win in today's Catalunya Grand Prix finishing nearly two seconds ahead of Dani Pedrosa who had to fend off a brace of challenges from Repsol Honda team-mate Marc Marquez to keep second place on the podium.
But it was bad news for Britain's Cal Crutchlow who crashed out after only five laps, losing the front while sitting in fourth place and in front of Valentino Rossi after taking advantage of his front-row starting position.
The Monster Yamaha man had stuck to his race strategy and followed Lorenzo, Pedrosa and Marquez through the opening laps and managed to get ahead of Rossi who was very nearly taken out by Alvaro Bautista, who tried to put a move on the Italian but crashed and only just missed the rear wheel of The Doctor on lap one.
As Lorenzo and his two fellow Spaniards disappeared and Crutchlow watched from the pitlane, Rossi wasn't able to match their pace and slowly slipped backwards as Pedrosa had Marquez on his rear tyre for the entire encounter and was the fastest man on track on more than one occasion.
With four laps to go, Marquez had a look up the inside of his team-leader but was forced to back off as he may have taken out both riders and he then had another go on the penultimate lap and the pair touched.
The impact pushed Marquez wide and it looked all over, but Marquez pulled back a half-second gap and was close enough to put a pass on in the last corner but wasn't going to risk it, crossing the line less than a tenth behind Pedrosa with Rossi a further four seconds back.
Stefan Bradl took a big handful of points in fifth place and was followed by Bradley Smith who took his best ever MotoGP finish in sixth place after Nicky Hayden crashed in front of him.
The Oxfordshire rider beat the factory Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso fair and square, finishing half a second in front of former factory Honda man with Aleix Espargaro topping the CRT charts in eighth with Colin Edwards ninth and Michele Pirro tenth.
Danilo Petrucci was the third CRT man home while Michael Laverty had his first non-finish of the season. He had hauled himself up to 13th and on the back wheel of Smith but ran on into turn one and crashed out.
