Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner has won this evening's Laguna Seca MotoGP race in California, riding round the outside of an injured Jorge Lorenzo as the Spaniard began to tire with his injuries after yesterday's big crash. Dani Pedrosa completed the podium.

Stoner, who claimed yesterday he had no race pace but made some setup changes after morning warm-up, went past Lorenzo with six laps to go at turn one, which is no mean move in itself, and immediately put a gap on the Yamaha man which he extended by a second a lap to take the chequered flag.

He said that as the fuel load came down, he was able to make the RC212V turn as he wanted and just had to be patient making time up on the brakes early on. Pedrosa, meanwhile, had gone with Lorenzo in the early laps but his shoulder injury also saw him lose pace towards the end in the searing heat of the Monterey Peninsula and he finished four seconds behind Lorenzo after Stoner passed him at the top of The Corkscrew.

Ben Spies must wonder what could have been as he got an awful start, dropping right back in the pack and he had to fight his way back through, being held up by Valentino Rossi to begin with and then lapping as fast as the leaders to go past Andrea Dovioso for fourth at turn 11 with two laps left to run even though he ran the soft tyre.

Rossi had a race-long battle with team-mate Nicky Hayden and the pair hugged in their garage after the chequered flag. Colin Edwards went past Hector Barbera on the exit of The Corkscrew at half distance to bag eighth as the Aspar Ducati man and Gresini Honda's Hiro Aoyama rounded out the top ten.

His team-mate Marco Simoncelli crashed unhurt at the bottom of The Corkscrew while Alvaro Bautista parted company with his Rizla Suzuki at Andretti. Britain's Cal Crutchlow only lasted three laps, also crashing out unhurt. Randy De Puniet did not start after his free practice crash resulted in fractured vertebrae while Ben Bostrom retired early on.

Result:

1 25 27 Casey STONER AUS Repsol Honda Team HONDA 43'52.145 157.997

2 20 1 Jorge LORENZO SPA Yamaha Factory Racing YAMAHA 43'57.779 157.659 5.634

3 16 26 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 44'01.612 157.431 9.467

4 13 11 Ben SPIES USA Yamaha Factory Racing YAMAHA 44'12.707 156.772 20.562

5 11 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 44'13.030 156.753 20.885

6 10 46 Valentino ROSSI ITA Ducati Team DUCATI 44'22.496 156.196 30.351

7 9 69 Nicky HAYDEN USA Ducati Team DUCATI 44'23.176 156.156 31.031

8 8 5 Colin EDWARDS USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 44'37.647 155.312 45.502

9 7 8 Hector BARBERA SPA Mapfre Aspar Team MotoGP DUCATI 44'43.694 154.962 51.549

10 6 7 Hiroshi AOYAMA JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 45'00.995 153.969 1'08.850

11 5 17 Karel ABRAHAM CZE Cardion AB Motoracing DUCATI 45'01.277 153.953 1'09.132

12 4 65 Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Pramac Racing Team DUCATI 44'05.129 152.308 1 lap

13 3 24 Toni ELIAS SPA LCR Honda MotoGP HONDA 44'29.962 150.892 1 lap

Not Classified

19 Alvaro BAUTISTA SPA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 18'06.782 155.457 19 laps

23 Ben BOSTROM USA LCR Honda MotoGP HONDA 12'09.042 142.609 24 laps

58 Marco SIMONCELLI ITA San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 8'21.101 155.609 26 laps

35 Cal CRUTCHLOW GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 4'18.554 150.792 29 laps

Air: 23° Ground: 44° Humidity: 39%