Lorenzo storms to victory in thrilling Italian Grand Prix

Building an early lead with great initial pace, which included him setting a provisional lap record on his first flying lap, Stoner was unable to resist the pace of both Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso over the final six laps, allowing Dovizioso to score his best result of the season in front of a home crowd.

After a race-long battle, it was Ben Spies who got the better of Marco Simoncelli for fourth position, ahead of Valentino Rossi who finished sixth having climbed from 12th on the grid.

As conditions remained fine and dry today, and the track temperature reached 54 degrees Celsius, every rider on the grid opted for the hard compound front tyre for the race. Rear choices were more mixed however, and although the top six riders used the harder rear slicks, tyre choices were split exactly in half throughout the field with eight riders favouring the harder rear and eight using the softer.

Taka Horio – General Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Department

“That was a very exciting race to watch, and I must congratulate Jorge and the Yamaha team for their performance today. He managed his tyres very well and as a result was very fast at the end, setting a new lap record and winning in a great fashion. Races like this are very good for the show, and I believe that Andrea’s good performance in front of his home crowd also gave a lot of excitement to the spectators, so I hope we can see more races like this.”

Hirohide Hamashima – Assistant to Director, Motorsport Tyre Development Division

“We have seen the laptimes have been very good all weekend so it is no surprise a new lap record was set, but what is impressive is that firstly Casey set a provisional record on just the second lap of the race and that Jorge set the lap record on lap 17. This illustrates how different rider and bike packages use our tyres differently, and how important the overall bike, rider and tyre package is in determining race-distance performance and race pace. Jorge’s winning race time on this new tarmac and using our asymmetric rear slicks for the first time was 40 seconds faster than the previous race time record, which shows not just good outright pace but also consistency. Jorge rode a very good race today and he and the Yamaha team made the very best of our tyres today in what was a very exciting race.”

Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Race Winner

“This win was more sweet than Jerez. It was difficult at the beginning as I knew Casey was so strong in the first few laps, but I didn’t give up and kept pushing and pushing. It was difficult to pass Andrea so I had to take some risks, and when I made a small mistake and was behind Andrea it was difficult to believe I could win. I could improve my laptime from the middle of the race to the end and this I like as this is my style. It’s a really important win, and from now everything is possible. I have won a lot of races very spectacularly in my career, but this is one of the best.”

Top ten classification (Sunday 14:00 GMT+2)

Weather: Dry. Ambient 28°C; Track 54°C (Bridgestone measurement)