Reigning MotoGP World Chamoion Jorge Lorenzo kept his title hopes alive today at Motegi, beating rival Marc Marquez at a Honda-owned track to reduce the gap to 13 points with just one race left at Valencia in two weeks' time.
Lorenzo led from start to finish, electing to run the softer-option Bridgestone while all about him chose the soft, and never looked in any trouble save for being held up by Damian Cudlin at the esses with five laps to go and was summoned to race direction for his trouble.
The Factory Yamaha man crossed the line with three seconds in hand over Marquex with Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa in third place, another 1.5 seconds further back. Pedrosa is now out of the title chase as he is 38 points behind and lets another year go past without doing the job. He was just ahead of Alvaro Bautista, whose end-of-season form run continues as he finished ahead of Stefan Bradl.
It was something of a disaster for Valentino Rossi. He ran off the track at turn 11 on consecutive laps, the second time putting him right back to 11th place, as the larger 340mm discs caused the Italian problems. He had to fight his way back past both Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith to claim sixth place.
The Monster Yamaha pair were fighting it out for a good portion of the race and it looked like rookie Smith was going to come out on top but his more experienced team-mate found a way through and took eighth place ahead of Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso.
Colin Edwards won the CRT race as Aleix Espargaro bailed off his Aprilia with brake problems. Randy De Puniet was second with Hector Barera third. Michael Laverty had to push his PBM over the line for 19th after it ran out of fuel.
