250s: Lorenzo wins again

The 20-year-old Spaniard took his Fortuna Aprilia past Andrea Dovizioso with ten laps to go and then pulled away to win by 3.578 seconds after the Italian broke down.

The retirement for Dovizioso increased Lorenzo's championship lead to 54 points and also saw him grab his eighth win of the year and the 16th of his career, breaking the record he previously shared with Sito Pons and Dani Pedrosa.

"I would like him to have finished the race because he is a strong rider and it's a lot of fun to race with him.

"I crashed at Donnington and Mugello and now he has a DNF, so I am very happy to celebrate this victory."

Polesitter Lorenzo was beaten to the first corner by Andrea Dovizioso and spent the first half of the race behind the Italian, who hails from nearby Forli and was looking to add to the locals' joy after Mattia Pasini's win in the 125s.

He could not hold off the world champion though, who slid inside him at the Cuercia corner on lap 15, only to slide wide at the very next turn and allow Dovizioso back past.

Next time around though Lorenzo made sure of keeping the lead for good, again getting ahead at Cuercia, again sliding wide at Tremonto, but this time getting a better run onto the back straight and powering ahead.

Just when it looked like the fans would be treated to a tremendous climax though, Dovizioso was to suffer a bitter blow as his Scot Honda ground to a halt at turn two on the very next lap with an engine problem.

His retirement allowed Mika Kallio and Hiroshi Aoyama into second and third on their KTMs. Aoyama had chosen a harder front tyre than his team-mate and this appeared to pay off when he too used the long braking zone into Cuercia to edge into second.

One lap later the corner proved disastrous though as Kallio crashed out with a spectacular high-side from which he was lucky to escape uninjured.

That promoted an intense battle between Alex de Angelis, Hector Barbera and Thomas Luthi from one for fourth to one for the final podium spot.

Toth Aprilia rider Barbera, who ran second in the early stages, eventually clinched it, but only after demoting Aspar Aprilia rider De Angelis - the only San Marinese rider in the field - with six laps to go.

Luthi, on a Caffe Latte Aprilia, also got by de Angelis to equal the best result of his career in fourth.

The attrition at the front end turned the battle for sixth into a four-way fight. After crashing on lap six, 125cc world champion Alvaro Bautista had re-mounted and was making his way back through the field.

He got as high as eighth as Repsol Honda man Shuhei Aoyama claimed sixth, one spot ahead of Roberto Locatelli, who took his best result since the horrifying crash at Jerez that nearly forced his feet to be amputated.

Ninth and tenth were Yuki Takahashi on the sister Scot Honda to Dovizioso and Julian Simon on a Repsol-run machine.