Honda’s Casey Stoner won his eighth race of the season in the Grand Prix of Aragon yesterday to extend his lead in the overall MotoGP standings.

The Australian’s team-mate Dani Pedrosa came in second at the Motorland circuit with reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo in third.

Lorenzo is now lying 44 points adrift of Stoner, the 2007 champion with Ducati, with four legs of the season remaining.

After adding another 25 points to his haul with only 100 points left the title is Stoner’s to lose.

Stoner, who lost out to Lorenzo when setting off from pole only to finish third last time out in San Marino, said: “We’re pretty much back to our best.

“It felt good all weekend. The bike has been fantastic and the only problem was the wind – it was changing direction and speed with every lap.”

The race could not have gone more smoothly for the 25-year-old Stoner, who led at the end of the first lap and surged clear to comfortably beat Pedrosa.

Behind Lorenzo in fourth came Marco Simoncelli with Ben Spies in fifth.

Italian Andrea Dovizioso, lying third in the title race, failed to make it past the opening lap as he crashed out while Valentino Rossi came in a disappointing 10th of the 13 finishers.

Home Spanish riders may have missed out on the main race yesterday but they cleaned up in the lower divisions, with Marc Marquez winning the Moto2 race and Nicolas Terol prevailing in the 125cc.

Standings
1. Stoner (Honda) 284, 2. Lorenzo (Yamaha) 240, 3. Dovizioso (Honda) 185, 4. Pedrosa (Honda) 170, 5. Spies (Yamaha) 146, 6. Rossi (Ducati) 139, 7. Hayden (Ducati) 114, 8. Simoncelli (Honda) 106, 9. Edwards (Yamaha) 90, 10. Aoyama (Honda) 87.