Jorge Lorenzo claimed a second win of the season at the Le Mans Moto GP, coping with variable conditions and even a bike switch. Lorenzo on the Fiat Yamaha lead from the first lap chequered flag to head up the rider leader board after the first four races of the season.
Italian team mate Valentino Rossi had a miserable day by his standards sliding off on the second lap and finishing last in the race standings.
With rain affecting the track in the practice sessions and with the wet weather of Japan in the riders memories, all competitors started the race on rain tires. The support teams having the dry tyred bikes in pit lane in expectation of an early swap as the track dried out.
Lorenzo, who started second on the grid, lost a place at the start but soon eased past Australian Casey Stoner and countryman Dani Pedrosa by the end of the first lap to take the lead.
After five laps the track seemed to have dried out so most riders chose to make early pit stops to switch motorcycles. The Spaniard decided to keep going and stretched his lead over the other front runners until lap 13 when a quick change of bikes enabled Lorenzo to stay in front after his pit stop. This turned out to be a pivotal move as when he took the flag, he was a comfortable 17 seconds over Italian Marco Melandri on the Kawasaki posting his best finish this season with fellow Spaniard Pedrosa in third and Andrea Dovizioso on the Honda making it a Italy/Spain top four.
With Rossi not in the picture, Stoner and Vermeulan picked up fifth and sixth respectively and James Toseland finishing in a repeatably respectable 9th.
In the 250 CC class, Italian Marco Simoncelli took his second podium in two races, with his first win of the year, making the best of the wet conditions and in the 125 CC competition, Bancaja Aspar rider Spaniard Julián Simón took first place ahead of promising 15 year-old German Jonas Folger.
The results tables and current rider standings are shown below:
