Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo has taken his second career MotoGP win this morning at Motegi, leading his team-mate Valentino Rossi over line by just over a second with the battered and bruised Dani Pedrosa in third.

Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner missed a podium position after an uncharacteristically poor start and then having to wait for his tyres to come up to temperature before he clawed his way through the field, going past Andrea Dovizioso for fourth with two laps to go. The Aussie came into his garage complaining of front brake issues.

Rossi got a lightning start and was into turn one first with Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen in second and Pedrosa riding round the outside of Stoner to take third by the time they got into turn two. Stoner was shuffled right back to seventh by the end of lap one while Monster Yamaha's Colin Edwards looked to be out before the end of lap as he put his hand up on the back straight.

The Doctor then set about putting a gap on Lorenzo and Pedrosa who had started their scrap for second place. By the end of lap two, the gap was 1.2s and was up to 1.4s before Lorenzo got into his stride and towed Pedrosa back up to his team leader.

Further down the field, Stoner was struggling with Hayate's Marco Melandri, who eventually finished sixth, before his tyres started to come to him and he started a charge. Britain's James Toseland was circulating in tenth, while team-mate Edwards sorted out whatever his problem was and was lapping in 15th place.

With 17 laps to go, Lorenzo and Pedrosa had caught Rossi while Dovizioso was also making ground on the leading trio. A lap later, Rossi and Lorenzo swapped places before the Spaniard made his final move into turn 11 and set about clearing off.

Stoner, still down in fifth, made some progress and got the gap to the leader down to 4.3s with 13 laps to go as fellow Ducati rider Mika Kallio was picking off places from the back of the grid and began to challenge Toseland.

Eight laps from the end, Pedrosa and Rossi were involved in a titanic tussle, swapping paint and places three times and with 17 laps gone, the Spaniard made what looked to be the definitive pass on Rossi. However, The Doctor wasn't finished with and a lap later, he re-passed Pedrosa into turn five and went after his team-mate. It looked like Rossi had some front-end problems mid-race, but these either cleared up or he rode round them.

His pace wasn't enough, though, and Lorenzo took the win and jumped to the top of the championship table.

Toseland finished in ninth place while Nicky Hayden got no points after being taken out by an errant Yuki Takahashi on the first lap. Edwards finished in 12th while Toni Elias crashed and re-mounted for 15th.

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