Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was back to his best at today’s Jerez MotoGP round with a lights-to-flag win in front of a huge home crowd, dominating the 27-lapper to cross the line with a five-second advantage.
Lorenzo was never headed in the race, grabbing the holeshot and only having to fend off a charge by the injured Marc Marquez in the early laps before getting the hammer down and extending his lead by half a second a lap.
Marquez, who is riding with a broken finger only slightly dulled by painkillers, fended off a mid-race charge from championship leader Valentino Rossi to keep second place and finally bag a decent points haul.
All the contenders rode with the medium rear tyre and hard front, and it looked like Rossi was going to catch Marquez from half distance but The Doctor only got as close as 1.1s before he ran out of front tyre and watched the Spaniard start to pull away again.
Rossi got caught up behind Pol Espargaro in the early laps and lost too much time to challenge for anything higher than third place.
The final podium spot marks Rossi’s 200th Grand Prix rostrum and he will also be pleased that title rival Andrea Dovizioso could only muster ninth place after running into the gravel on lap three and coming back on to the track in dead last.
Britain’s Cal Crutchlow fought hard early on for fourth place, battling with Pol Espargaro before pulling away. He finished four seconds ahead of the man who took his spot at Monster Yamaha and 22s behind Lorenzo.
Espargaro won a battle with Andrea Iannone for fifth place. The works Ducati man started on the front row but got an appalling start and slipped back to the wrong end of the top ten battled back, also passing Aleix Espargaro and Bradley Smith on his way through.
Smith rescued points from what looked like an awful weekend and had a big gap to Dovizioso in ninth place. Yonny Hernandez ended in tenth place, ahead of Maverick Vinales and Danilo Petrucci. Scott Redding dropped to 13th place with Eugene Laverty in 18th.
