by Tracy Hagen

Jorge Lorenzo rode his Yamaha to victory at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday, his fifth win of the season and his first since being rammed at Assen two weeks ago. The former world champion led the race from start to finish and never saw another rider try to pass him on the day.

Honda’s Dani Pedrosa finished second, five seconds behind. Andrea Dovizioso finished third on the Monster Yamaha for the third race in a row.

Compared to the previous two surprise-filled races, this race went down with little drama, save for one rider: world champion Casey Stoner had a completely off day and finished eighth and a half-minute behind Lorenzo. Stoner did not get off the line well and only managed to reach fifth place, five seconds behind Lorenzo, by lap nine. On the following lap Stoner ran off the track and re-joined the race in tenth place. Stoner raced on the harder Bridgestone rear tire, the only rider to do so. However, he blamed his off-track excursion on brake pads that were momentarily knocked back.

Lorenzo stretched his lead in the champion ship to 19 points ahead of Pedrosa and 37 points ahead of Stoner. Only two weeks ago Stoner and Lorenzo were tied; today Honda’s championship hopes are in deep trouble.

The biggest source of suspense during the race was who would take the final podium position. Over the second half of the race it looked like that would be rookie Stefan Bradl on the satellite Honda, then Dovizioso – no, wait, Bradl – oh, now it’s Dovi. As those two fought over third Nicky Hayden reeled them in on the Ducati and looked for a way through. Hayden was then joined by teammate Valentino Rossi and Dovizioso’s teammate Cal Crutchlow. On the final lap Hayden lunged at Bradl and took fourth position. But Bradl immediately forced his way ahead of Hayden, causing Hayden to run wide and let Rossi and Crutchlow through. The interval from third to seventh at the finish was 1.6 seconds, and for Hayden it was the second race in a row where he finished fifth in a tight five-rider pack. Ouch.

Ben Spies raced despite having a bout of food poisoning that left him sick and dizzy. The Texan finished eleventh, just ahead of Randy De Puniet on the Aprilia CRT superbike.

Four of the nine CRT superbikes that started the race failed to finish. Colin Edwards was one of them, with the engine in his BMW sounding like it had food poisoning as well and on the verge of throwing up when he pulled into the pits on lap 11.

Next race: Laguna Seca, July 29.