MotoGP heads to scenic Mugello

The scenic setting of Mugello welcomes the MotoGP world championship this weekend, as Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo aims to extend his 9pt lead over team-mate Valentino Rossi at the top of the standings and Australian Casey Stoner (Ducati) looks to get his season back on track.

With victory at Le Mans last time out Lorenzo secured his first back-to-back wins in the premier class, and his 70pts so far is the highest points tally by a rider in the MotoGP class after the opening three rounds since Rossi amassed the same amount in the same number of races in 2005.

Lorenzo finished on the podium last season (second) at Mugello, and if he goes one better this year and wins ahead of Rossi it will be the first time since joining the premier class in 2000 that the reigning world champion will have finished behind a team-mate in three successive races.

However, Mugello is a circuit that Rossi has enjoyed immense success at previously. The Italian finished third there last season on his way to the title, having won the previous seven years. Rossi will also be going for a 50th premier class pole position start at the weekend.

Another Italian hoping to impress his home fans will be Andrea Dovizioso, with the factory Honda rider already produced a strong start to the season that has already seen two podium finishes. Last year at Mugello he just missed out on a top-three place having led at stages of both the wet and dry parts of the race.

His team-mate Dani Pedrosa sits just 2pts behind in the standings and has enjoyed success at Mugello before. Last year he failed to finish the race, but in his three premier class rides there before that he never finished outside the top four, two of which were podium results.

Nicky Hayden and Ducati will be looking for a good result in the team's home race, with the American seeking an improvement on his recent form at Mugello. A best placement of third came back in 2006, and Hayden's form this season indicates that a first podium of 2010 is imminent.

His team-mate Stoner's season has gotten off to a difficult start, but the Australian won here last year and broke Rossi's dominance so will be confident that he can score his first notable points of the season at Mugello.

Randy de Puniet (Honda) is the highest placed private team rider in the standings and enjoyed his best MotoGP finish at Mugello last year with eighth place, and the Frenchman will continue his battle with Marco Melandri (Honda) and Colin Edwards (Yamaha).

Rookies Marco Simoncelli (Honda and Héctor Barberá (Ducati), in their first premier class outings at the track, will look to consolidate their impressive starts and top 10 positions in the standings, with fellow newcomer Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) and Mika Kallio (Ducati) hot on their trail.

Ben Spies (Yamaha) and Suzuki duo Loris Capirossi and Álvaro Bautista will all be looking to bounce back after Le Mans, while Aleix Espargaró (Ducati) will want to build on his promising result from the last round.

There will be live coverage of MotoGP qualifying on ONE at 9.55pm on Saturday, and the race coverage starts at 6.45pm on Sunday with the 125cc race.

Then it's Moto2, featuring Australia's Anthony West, at 8.00pm, and MotoGP at 9.30pm.