Victory for Lorenzo at Laguna Seca

Australia's Casey Stoner (Ducati) has scored his best result of the season with second place in the American MotoGP race in America, with Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) winning his sixth race of the year to take a stranglehold on the world championship standings.

A trademark lightning start from Dani Pedrosa (Honda) saw him lead into turn one of the first lap and the Spaniard appeared to be making a similar break for victory as he had done in the previous round, as he led for the early part of the race while setting a fierce pace.

However, on lap 11 and with Lorenzo pressuring him for the lead, Pedrosa crashed out at turn five, leaving his fellow Spaniard to taste victory on the Californian circuit for the first time.

In second place at 3.517secs behind, Stoner scored his fourth podium in a row, with a distance of almost 10 seconds back to Rossi, who held off Andrea Dovizoso (Honda) for the final podium spot.

There were early ends to the race for rookies Álvaro Bautista (Suzuki) and Héctor Barberá (Ducati), neither making it past lap four.

By that stage Pedrosa was already rapid at the front with Stoner matching him for pace, but on lap five Lorenzo - who had dropped to fourth at the start - managed to pass the Australian who ran wide at turn three.

Then the drama really kicked in as Pedrosa crashed, leaving Lorenzo first with Stoner not far behind, and Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) in third with an almost two-second margin over those following. However, that gap was quite admirably shredded away by Rossi as he managed to make up the difference, eventually passing his fellow Italian with five laps to go to slot into third.

As the tyres started to go off towards the end there were changes further down the order, as Ben Spies (Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati) fought for the honour of highest placing American, a duel that presented plenty of enthralling moments of its own.

Hayden edged out Spies for fifth place, with the latter's team-mate Colin Edwards seventh. The top 10 was completed by Marco Melandri (Honda), Mika Kallio (Ducati) and Loris Capirossi (Suzuki). The remaining two riders to finish the race in 11th and 12th were Roger Lee Hayden (Honda) and Alex de Angelis (Honda).

Marco Simoncelli (Honda) suffered the disappointment of crashing out two-thirds of the way through the race when battling with team-mate Melandri for eighth, while Aleix Espargaró (Ducati) fell three laps from the end when in a top 10 position.

Lorenzo now has 210pts, with Pedrosa remaining second in the standings on 138 and Dovizioso third on 115.

Click on the following link for full results and standings.