Lorenzo back to best as Laverty chases first points of the year

Marquez’s performance was remarkable as he was under the surgeons’ knife only a few days before the meeting on a broken finger. In third place was the legend himself Valentino Rossi taking his 200th Grand Prix rostrum. The top British rider was Cal Crutchlow on the WCM Honda.

“I am so proud of myself and of the team that we finally delivered some extraordinary work, because we have had some problems that have been beyond our control this year. Due to the lining of my helmet in Doha, my illness in Austin and the tyres in Argentina we couldn’t demonstrate our true potential. Today I was able to brake really late, enter well into the corners and carry good corner speed and acceleration, so everything was fine. “Now we have to enjoy these hours, this night and this victory,” said Lorenzo.

Eugene Laverty had a great qualifying at Jerez on the Aspar Honda but although he was pleased with the overnight changes the Aspar team made to the bike the changes inadvertently led to arm pump in the 27 lap race. He was strong in the early stages of the race but faded later and was powerless to stop Alvaro Bautista, Stefan Bradl and team-mate Nicky Hayden getting past. In the end he finished 18th , still chasing his first points of the season.

He said: “The start of the race was really good. I felt positive and the bike was fantastic. Once the tyre started to move around the setting change that we made to fix our problem we had with grip, we went too much in that direction. We made the bike too rear biased. So when it came towards the end of the race I was spinning the rear and it was difficult to drive forward.”

Twenty-one-year-old British star Danny Kent re-wrote the history books with his third successive Moto3 World Championship victory at the bwin Grand Prix of Spain in Jerez. The last British rider to win three grands prix in succession was Barry Sheene back in 1977. He has now increased his lead in the championship to 31 points.