Stoner takes the honours

Australia's defending world champion Casey Stoner won the Spanish MotoGP yesterday for his first win of the season.

The Honda rider beat Spain's 2010 world champion Jorge Lorenzo on a Yamaha while another Spaniard, Dani Pedrosa, in his 100th race, was third on a Honda.

English rider Cal Crutchlow recorded his second successive fourth place.

Lorenzo - who was bidding to become the first rider since Valentino Rossi in 2001 to win the first two races - retains his lead in the overall standings after winning the race opener in Qatar where Stoner finished third.

Stoner was ecstatic at his victory on a track which he has said he hates, and where he had only previously finished on the podium once.

"That is the greatest race I've ever done," said the 26-year-old, who extended his run of 17 successive podium finishes.

"I had a poor start and the conditions were dodgy at first but the bike was working fantastically."

Lorenzo said he had wanted to deliver victory to his home fans.

"Sadly I was not strong enough today and Casey rode a remarkable race," he said.

Pedrosa took the lead on the first corner ahead of Lorenzo while Crutchlow overtook Hayden but the Englishman fell back to fifth by the end of the lap.

Stoner produced a wonderful manoeuvre with 25 laps left and overtook Pedrosa and Lorenzo to take the lead.

Stoner and Lorenzo had opened up a bit of a gap on third-placed American Nicky Hayden with 22 laps to go, while Pedrosa was struggling to make an impact back in fifth and finding it difficult to pass Andrea Dovizioso.

Two laps later, down the straight Pedrosa at last found the speed to move smoothly past both Dovizioso and Hayden to go third, but the Spaniard was almost three seconds adrift of Lorenzo.

Lorenzo gradually put the pressure on Stoner and with eight laps remaining the Spaniard was right on the shoulder of the Australian, only to make an error on a corner with six laps to go.

Pedrosa also was starting to reduce the gap on the front two while Crutchlow was impressing in fourth and setting fastest laps at will as he tried to get onto the podium.

However, Stoner fought off Lorenzo's challenge by posting the fastest time on the penultimate lap while Pedrosa's charge petered out as he focused instead on holding off Crutchlow.

Earlier, Spanish rider Pol Espargaro won a rain-shortened Moto2 GP, while 16-year-old Italian Romano Fenati won the Moto3 race.

The next races are in Portugal next weekend.