They cleared the grid early for MotoGP as the clouds looked onimous but at the start it was dry. Jorge Lorenzo had a great start and took the lead with Casey Stoner, Ben Spies and Valentino Rossi following, Marco Simoncelli was shuffled back to sixth.
Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso were having a ding-dong battle for fourth, with Dovi able to use the slipstream on the straight to pass Rossi. Stoner and Lorenzo meanwhile were clearing off together at the front.
Just a couple of laps in Randy de Puniet and Hiroshi Aoyama both went down with neither rider looking particularly well holding various bits of their bodies. Aoyama later apologising to de Puniet for the accident.
Casey Stoner then started to put the hammer down and slowly began pulling away from Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso was starting to catch Ben Spies in third and was bringing Valentino Rossi with him on the Ducati.
Behind them Marco Simoncelli re-grouped after his bad start and was starting to gain on Rossi in fifth.
Cal Crutchlow, shuffled back to 8th behind Hayden, passed the Ducati rider with 16 laps to go and then began his charge to catch Simoncelli in sixth. With 14 laps to go Stoner had a 2.363 second lead ahead of Jorge Lorenzo in second and some 5.721 seconds ahead of Ben Spies in third.
With 13 laps to go the white flags began to wave and we had a flag-to-flag race as the second bikes began to get prepared. While this was going on Jorge Lorenzo began to catch Casey Stoner dropping the gap down to 1.8 seconds with 10 laps to go, but just two laps later and Stoner had re-grouped and stretched the lead to 2.938 seconds.
With seven laps remaining Valentino Rossi began to drop off Andrea Dovizioso and fall back into the clutches of Marco Simoncelli. However Rossi responded and put a couple of seconds between him and Simoncelli after a couple of laps.
It was a slow race in the end with little changing from start to end at the front, the most excitement seemed to come from Capirossi and Abraham battling for ninth.
- Casey Stoner (27) - Repsol Honda Team - 43.19.779
- Jorge Lorenzo (1) - Yamaha Factory Racing +2.403
- Ben Spies (11) - Yamaha Factory Racing +4.291
- Andrea Dovizioso (4) - Repsol Honda Team +5.255
- Valentino Rossi (46) - Ducati Team +7.371
- Marco Simoncelli (58) - San Carlo Honda Gresini +11.831
- Cal Crutchlow (35) - Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +26.843
- Nicky Hayden (69) - Ducati Team +33.243
- Loris Capirossi (65) - Pramac Racing Team +43.092
- Karel Abraham (17) - Cardion AB Motoracing +43.113
- Hector Barbera (8) - Mapfre Aspar Team MotoGP +44.224
- Alvaro Bautista (19) - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +45.239
- Toni Elias (24) – Honda MotoGP +58.268
