Jorge Lorenzo needed to finish either first or second today in order to ensure that the only other rider that could potentially challenge him for the 2010 MotoGP Championship would be Dani Pedrosa. Lorenzo started the race strongly and challenged Casey Stoner for the lead during the first lap, but he didn’t have the full race pace to match Stoner or Pedrosa and soon fell back into a battle for third with Nicky Hayden. Hayden managed to pull off an audacious move on Lorenzo on the final lap to take third and to relegate Lorenzo to 4th – his worst race result of the year.

Valentino Rossi also had a forgettable weekend and found himself struggling in the middle of the field against Hector Barbera and Marco Simoncelli, before opening up a gap to take 7th position.

Jorge Lorenzo – Position: 4 Time: +9.580
“My start was very good, but during the race I struggled a lot with Nicky always behind me, very close! We can’t be happy with the result and I am disappointed to finish my podium run, but the most important thing is that we did finish and we still took points for our championship. We have five more races to go and, although this is a complicated moment for us and we have some things to address, I am confident that we can improve again. Now we go to Motegi and I am looking forward to a good result at the home of Yamaha.”

Valentino Rossi – Position: 6 Time: +27.330
“This was a very difficult race for us; we had a lot of problems all weekend and I was very slow today. I had to try to arrive to the end but I couldn’t do better than sixth. All the Yamahas have suffered here but my shoulder problems made it even worse for me and this, combined with the problems with our package at this track, made it extra hard. We’re very sad this afternoon and we hope for better in Japan.”

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