Spanish rider Jorge Lorenzo has won the Dutch MotoGP for his fourth victory of the season and extended his overall lead in the championship standings.
The 23-year-old Yamaha rider eased home ahead of Honda-riding compatriot Dani Pedrosa while Australia's former world champion Casey Stoner recorded his and the Ducati team's first podium finish of the season as he took third.
Lorenzo - runner-up to his injured team-mate Valentino Rossi in the championship last year - leads Pedroso by 47 points after six races.
Lorenzo said that he had found this race more difficult than his win at Silverstone last weekend.
"This race has been a little bit more difficult than Silverstone," said Lorenzo.
"I was surprised by the times that Casey and Dani were posting and I had to up it a gear or two to stay out in front and win the race."
Pedrosa was pleasantly surprised to have even been in contention.
"I am surprised with the result as practice was a nightmare where we tried everything and nothing worked.
"I would like to thank the team as they worked a miracle to get me this result and let us just hope that it is easier in the Catalan MotoGP next weekend."
Stoner, the 2007 world champion, was delighted to be back on the podium.
"It is a nice result for us, although, it should have happened a lot earlier than this," said the 26-year-old who is seventh in the standings.
Lorenzo led early on from Pedrosa and Stoner, who were duelling for second place with the Australian appearing to be the big danger as he recorded faster times than the Spanish overall leader's pole position ride on Friday.
Lorenzo's closest title challenger before the race, Italian rider Andrea Dovizioso, was not in the mix and with 11 laps to go was over five seconds in arrears and in no position to reduce the gap of 37 points between himself and the Spaniard.
Indeed Dovizioso, second at Silverstone last weekend, was being pushed all the way by American rookie Ben Spies, who confirmed that he is a fast rising star, overtaking the Italian with 10 laps remaining of the 26-lap race and ended up fourth.
Another who failed to fire was French rider Randy de Puniet, who having started alongside Lorenzo was left for dead at the start and never recovered enough to launch a challenge for the victory.
De Puniet, though, managed to get back into contention for fourth place and was involved in a thrilling three-way fight for it with Spies and Dovizioso, with him and the Italian sparring through the last lap for fifth spot which saw Dovizioso eventually prevail.
Lorenzo having dropped back almost within the clutches of the pursuing duo of Pedrosa and Stoner, then pressed the accelerator and was a comfortable two seconds ahead of his Spanish compatriot with just six laps remaining and coasted to victory.
Rossi not racing along, I may have predicted who is the champion this year :)
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