Jorge Lorenzo’s relentless march towards his first MotoGP world title continued in Brno with the Spaniard romping to a seventh win of 2010.The Fiat Yamaha rider was rarely threatened once he produced a brilliant double overtake at the same corner on Dani Pedrosa and Ben Spies on the first lap. Pedrosa offered brief but ultimately futile resistance, and by the end of a somewhat dull 22-lap race, Lorenzo cruised to his fifth win in the last six races by over five seconds.

His latest triumph moved him into a 77-point lead over Repsol Honda rider Pedrosa with eight races remaining.

“Today has been tough because the wind doesn’t help us with good lap times,” said Lorenzo. “But I pushed at 100 percent and when I saw the gap between me and Dani was going up a little bit I thought it was my moment and I pushed a bit harder to get my seventh win, and this is fantastic.”

Lorenzo conceded that he expected a much sterner examination from Pedrosa after he’d suffered a late crash in qualifying that ended his stunning run of five successive pole positions. The 23-year-old added: “After my problems in qualifying and the crash I didn't expect this. I thought it would be much more of a struggle. Once I got to the front I expected Dani to come with me and I knew it was my moment and that I had to push as much as possible. I thought he would try to overtake me because the lap times were not so fast and I was thinking he’d be quite comfortable behind me. But the reality is I was pushing and he was, but he was losing a little bit more than me. I felt good, pushed hard and little by little I was able to lose him. I know I said I was riding for the championship now and that's still true but when there's the chance to win I have to take it. The goal is always to finish the race and the goal is also to finish on the podium. But if I can win I will make it for sure. I didn’t want to close the throttle or be settling for second position. I thought it was difficult to win but when I put myself in first position I tried and I made it.”

Lorenzo added it was a fantastic feeling to have the luxury of such a huge point advantage heading back to America for the second time in a month for the forthcoming Indianapolis race on August 25.

“It is a big lead but Dani is in a good shape and normally he has finished the last races in second-place,” said Lorenzo. “Apart from the crash in Laguna the gap doesn’t go up so much but it is fantastic to have such a big gap.”

Valentino Rossi was puzzled at his failure to come close to challenging for a podium finish in the Czech Republic MotoGP race at Brno. Optimistic that he could contend for a second successive podium in his third race since returning from the broken right leg he suffered in Mugello, the 31-year-old was woefully off the pace and limped home in a distant fifth position. The nine-time world champion was a massive 17.9s behind runaway winner and Fiat Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo, and after registering his worst result of the season he said: “We are really disappointed because we had hoped to have a good race and I was confident that I could challenge at the front. It seemed everything was right and yesterday we had a good pace but today we just weren't as fast and I couldn't stay with the leaders. We need to understand what went wrong in the race because on Friday and Saturday I was very fast with the same bike and tires. I tried to ride like in practice but there was no way I could do it. I had a similar problem in Laguna Seca at the beginning of the race when there was some confusion amongst the riders and I wasn't strong enough. But after seven or eight I came back to my Saturday pace and reached the podium in Laguna, which was my potential. I expected a potential of 57.5 in Brno but I did 58.5 in the entire race and it wasn't all because of my physical condition. The tires are the same and the bike is the same, so there is no reason to lose one second from Saturday to Sunday."

A fifth consecutive podium finish left Casey Stoner satisfied rather than happy as his winless streak extended to 11 races in Brno. Stoner took third from Ben Spies on Lap 9 but by that time Spanish duo Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa were well clear as the Australian once again failed to mount a serious victory challenge. The 24-year-old has now gone nearly 11 months without a premier class win.

“It doesn’t seem to matter how the weekend starts out it always ends the same,” said Stoner. “We lost quite a lot of time on Friday and pretty much rode around on something I wasn’t happy with. Saturday morning we made some good steps but every step we made in qualifying seemed to be in the wrong direction. We put too much weight on the rear and too much weight on the front and we couldn’t really find a nice balance. It wasn’t until the closing stages of qualifying that we actually felt that we had a bike that was working pretty well. The wet warm-up put us on the back foot and in the race we started out with a bit too much weight on the front and I was closing the front in a lot of corners and I was running wide in a lot of places. It wasn’t until about the halfway stage that I started feeling better with the bike. When Andrea went down I knew everybody was having the same problems with the front, but it wasn’t until halfway into the race at least that the front felt better and I felt I could push into some corners and get some feedback. I’m satisfied but not happy with third-place.”

Stoner denied he’d come close to striking Italian Dovizioso after the Repsol Honda rider’s early blunder at Turn 9.

“It wasn’t real close because I was that slow and he kept going the same speed as me. He went down and was on his elbow and kept sliding and sliding and sliding and I think I even passed him before he finished crashing. It went on forever. I looked up at the screen and saw his bike in the middle of the track. That happened about half a lap after I lost the front, which is when Dovi came past me. And then he lost the front and went down."

Explaining why he was unable to match the early speed of Lorenzo and Pedrosa, the 2007 world champion added: “That's where i seem to be struggling a lot more recently, we have some extra weight in the front which doesn't help us too much and I don't know if it’s because of M2 or not because in Laguna everyone struggled more and more as the weekend went on and by the time we got to the race everyone was folding the front for no reason. There is something strange and it would be nice if we could get to the bottom of it but it’s not M2 because we had the same problem in Laguna. Just look at how many people have lost the front in the last few races."

Dani Pedrosa reckons he was too cautious in the early laps as he suffered another heavy defeat to bitter Spanish rival Jorge Lorenzo in Brno on Sunday. Pedrosa made his customary fast start from his third pole position of the campaign but was quickly relegated back down to third spot as Yamaha duo Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies swept by on the opening lap. Pedrosa quickly claimed the same position back from Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider Spies on Lap 2. But he never looked like posing any serious threat to Lorenzo, who rammed his superior pace at the halfway stage to streak away to another convincing victory. It was the third time in the last five races that Pedrosa has been forced to chase home Lorenzo’s Fiat Yamaha in second-place.

“I started quite well but at the first left I was too concerned about the tire temperature and I braked very early,” Pedrosa said. “Spies and Jorge overtook me and apart from that I wasn’t able to go as fast as yesterday. I was spinning a lot and I couldn’t get the drive out of the corners but I tried to improve my riding and by the middle of the race I couldn’t improve anymore. It was not the best conditions for me today but after the crash in Laguna Seca I am happy to be back on the podium and this is a positive thing.”

A front tire grip issue that hit several riders in the Brno race was picked out as the main reason for Ben Spies’ failing to record a second premier class podium finish. The Texan was holding his own in an early fight with Spanish duo Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa when he suddenly started to encounter a front tire grip problem. Unable to remain a threat to the leading duo, Spies had to reduce his pace to such an extent that he quickly came under attack from Australian Casey Stoner. Stoner was able to move by the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider with relative ease on Lap 9 and Spies had no answer as he had to settle for a lonely fourth spot in what was a largely uninspiring 22-lap race in front of a crowd of close to 150,000 fans.

“I got a good start and was staying right with Jorge and Dani for a few laps and had a comfortable pace. But after about Lap 7 I starting having problems with the front that I hadn’t experienced all weekend. It’s a shame because while I know I definitely didn’t have anything to fight Jorge with because he is riding so well, maybe I could have stayed close to Dani. I’m not saying I’d have beaten him but I’d have been closer to put up a challenge. I had one second on Casey when I started having the problems but I had to slow my pace quite a bit and that was a bit frustrating because it meant he caught me quite quickly. I couldn’t run his speed so when he passed me I didn’t worry about trying to run with him. I'm not upset though because without that small problem I could have easily battled for the podium. I’d have loved the podium to give me a big lift before going home to Indianapolis, but I’m really happy with my recent performances and once again I was the top satellite team rider.”

Spies has now scored five top-six finishes in the last six races and is just nine points adrift of compatriot Nicky Hayden in the world championship classification.

Andrea Dovizioso had a lucky escape today when he crashed out of podium contention during the Czech Republic MotoGP race. The Italian had passed Casey Stoner on Lap 3 but just one lap later he lost the front-end of his factory Honda RC212V at Turn 9. The tumble was so slow though that the former world 125GP champion came to a halt in the middle of the track and only decisive and evasive action from Valentino Rossi, Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden prevented a sickening collision. Rossi was the closest to striking Dovizioso and the 24-year-old admitted he’d been lucky not to be hit.

“When I was in the middle of the track it was pretty scary because the riders behind were going on either side of me, so actually I was lucky that the consequences weren’t worse,“ said a relieved Dovizioso. Dovizioso though was just as upset as he was relieved as his crash extended his dismal recent run of results. Having made a stunning start to the season with four podiums in the opening five races, he’s now gone five successive races without a podium. He lost third-place in the overall rankings to Casey Stoner, and Ben Spies in seventh is now just 25-points from Dovizioso.

“When the front closed it closed a little bit faster than I expected and I couldn’t recover the mistake. I think a lot of people were at the limit with the front and the wind had an impact on this and also the rubber on the ground was not so much. But I am so angry because I could have fought for the podium and I think for second-place with Dani. I am really frustrated about that because this track for me has always been really bad and in the race I was there and fighting at the front. I made a really good first two corners and got into fifth and then I was able to pass Casey. I was really close to Ben and one or two laps later for sure I would have overtaken him. We needed a good result here so it’s disappointing.”

A chipped bone in his left wrist failed to prevent Nicky Hayden from claiming his sixth top-six finish of the season in a gruelling Brno encounter. The Kentucky rider chipped the radius bone in his left wrist in a heavy qualifying crash on Saturday, yet the American was able to keep in touch with Valentino Rossi for part of the 22-lap clash. Hayden, who has now scored just five points less in ten races than he managed in the whole of 2009, said: “Taking everything into consideration I have to be happy with sixth-place – our pace wasn’t bad and looking at the lap times I could have maybe been fighting for a higher position if I was fully fit. When Valentino passed me I managed to stay with him for a while but couldn’t hang on and just had to focus on keeping a pace that allowed me to bring some good points home. I want to thank the team because they made some changes to the bike to give me better grip in the left-hand corners and it worked. Once the race started and the adrenaline kicked in I couldn’t really feel the pain in my hand but I suddenly started to feel it as soon as I crossed the line. The thing I’m most worried about is if I can test tomorrow because it’s going to be a really important session for us.”

Hayden is due to test a new set of Ohlins front forks to try and get more feel with the front-end of his factory Ducati GP10. A vague front-end feeling has been a big concern for the 2006 world champion and Australian teammate Casey Stoner in 2010.