Lorenzo triumphs in San Marino GP

MISANO, Italy: Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo reignited his bid to defend the Moto GP world crown with victory in San Marino, the 13th leg of the 18-race championship, on Sunday.
Lorenzo, winning at the Misano circuit for the third successive season, finished ahead of championship leader Marc Marquez with Honda teammate and Spanish compatriot Dani Pedrosa in third.
Italy’s seven-time world champion Valentino Rossi finished fourth on a Yamaha.
Lorenzo’s 49th career win, and 28th in the sport’s premier category, allowed him to pull level in the championship race with second-placed Pedrosa. Both now have a deficit of 34 points to Marquez with five races remaining.
A fortnight after claiming victory at Silverstone, he said it is crucial to be fighting in every event.
“It is important to win, because we don’t lose points but we have only recovered five points, so it is the same as Silverstone,” said the Spaniard.
“It doesn’t make a big difference to the championship. But I’m very happy for this victory, because we struggled a lot during the weekend especially on braking.”
Lorenzo came to the Italian circuit hoping to make it three in a row and declaring he was fighting fit following a crash in June and subsequent surgery on a broken collarbone.
And he let Marquez know of his intentions from the outset, powering his Yamaha from second place on the grid behind his fellow Spaniard into first place on the opening lap.
From then on, Lorenzo led the race and steadily opened up a gap on Marquez and Pedrosa, who went on to engage in a thrilling battle for second place in the closing laps.
Marquez admitted he made mistakes “in the first part of the race,” but after collecting 20 valuable points the Moto GP novice said the title fight is far from over.
“There are still five races ahead with a lot of points still to be won so I will keep the same mentality and you will still see the same Marc on track,” said Marquez.
Pedrosa said he struggled with edge grip on his tires especially while cornering, and admitted: “I lost a lot on the first couple of laps, but tried to focus and do the perfect race every lap.”
He added: “In the end I had to battle for a couple of laps with Marc (Marquez), but made one mistake in the last corner and lost touch with about three laps to go.”
The 14th race of the season is the Aragon GP in Spain on September 29, with the season finale in Valencia on November 10 following races in Malaysia, Australia and Japan.