Lorenzo gains ground on Rossi

Spain’s Jorge Lorenzo claimed his fourth win of the season at the Portuguese MotoGP yesterday to gain ground on championship leader and Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi.

Lorenzo, who recorded his first MotoGP win at Estoril last year, is now 18 points adrift of world champion Rossi with three races remaining. Rossi finished fourth despite also having started from the front row.

The Spaniard started from pole and dominated the race, finishing 6.3 seconds ahead of Australia’s Casey Stoner, the 2007 champion who made a successful comeback after missing the last three rounds with a mystery illness.

Honda rider Dani Pedrosa finished third and posted a new lap record of one minute 36.937 seconds.

Italian Marco Simoncelli won in the 250cc category, with Hiroshi Aoyama finishing fourth to extend his championship lead to 26 points after Alvaro Bautista crashed out early on.