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MotoGP Motegi: Pedrosa takes victory in the wet

Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa has taken his first MotoGP win of the year at Motegi today, crossing the line eight seconds ahead of Valentino Rossi who extends his lead over Jorge Lorenzo to 18 points as the Spaniard could only finish in third as he lost front end grip with his hard-comoound Bridgestone.

Lorenzo went away from the lights like a scalded cat and built up a big lead over his Movistar Yamaha team-mate with Pedrosa sitting in third. But he used up his front quicker than the two men behind him and fell behind. Pedrosa played a smart game, conserved his rubber and was able to lap more than a second faster than the Yamaha men.

Pedrosa passed Rossi for second place with nine laps to go as The Doctor suffered the same, if less marked, problems as Lorenzo who Pedrosa went past two laps later as the Mallorcan rider’s lap times fell off a cliff. Lorenzo was unable to brake as hard as he would like and a mistake with five laps to go saw him run wide and hand second place to Rossi.

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Lorenzo admitted in parc ferme he now has to win all three remaining races in order to try and win the title while Rossi can follow him home in second and still be crowned champion.

Pedrosa’s teammate Marc Marquez crossed the line in a lonely fourth nursing the broken bone in his left hand ahead of the Dovizioso, who despite his tyre issues, held on for fifth.

LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow came out on top by just 0.404s in an excellent battle for sixth against his compatriot Bradley Smith on the Monster Yamaha to finish as the leading satellite rider. Crutchlow passed Smith on the last lap to secure sixth, his best result since he also finished sixth at Assen. Smith crossed the line in seventh to make it 21 point scoring finishes in a row, but dropped down to sixth in the standings, two points behind Dovizioso.

Wildcard Katsuyuki Nakasuga (Yamaha Factory Team) rode brilliantly to finish in eighth ahead of Hector Barbera on the Avintia Racing Ducati. Barbera took the Open class win and also recorded his first top ten finish of the season to re-take the lead in the Open standings by two points from Loris Baz (Forward Racing), who was forced to retire from the race after riding into the gravel and subsequently pitting to swap bikes.

Scott Redding completed the top ten after gambling with a hard/hard tyre combination and he charged through the field as everyone's tyres began to lose grip. Aleix Espargaro  finished 11th after running into the gravel, with the second wildcard Takumi Takahashi (Team HRC with Nissin) 12th.

Nicky Hayden was the leading Open Class Honda in 13th, with his Irish teammate Eugene Laverty crossing the line in 17th.

Jack Miller (LCR Honda) crashed twice during the race, after at one point leading the Open class battle, and was forced to retire. There were also crashes for Silverstone hero Danilo Petrucci (Octo Pramac Racing), Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha) and Maverick Viñales (Team Suzuki Ecstar) who went down in separate incidents at the same place. Andrea Iannone's GP15 expired at half distance after he put in a spirited start.

Rossi (283pts) now has an 18-point lead over Lorenzo (265pts) with just three races remaining, while Marc Marquez remains in third with 197 points.

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