Toni Elias led for a few brilliant laps at the beginning, but was quickly swallowed by faster riders. He was still in contention when he ran just a little too wide, hit the slippery white line, and high sided his way out of the race. He came away unharmed, but with nothing to show for his brilliant early form.

Jorge Lorenzo was the next to crash, leading the race with a decent margin, he too caught the edge of the white line and got flung into the gravel for his efforts. He got up uninjured, but his bike hit the wall and was unrecoverable. Back in the pits he had to watch as Valentino Rossi took his hard earned lead and ran with it. But Rossi wasn’t having a runaway as might have been expected. Dani Pedrosa was having problems of his own and was slipping all the time towards the middle of the pack as his team mate Andrea Dovizioso was sat right on the very tail of Rossi’s Yamaha M1.

Dovi showed Rossi his front tire on a few occasions, but Rossi kept him behind him as they both made their way through the very treacherous conditions. Until Rossi’s back tire went out from under him and he slid out of the lead. He and his M1 were OK and able to get back up, but the damage was done and he wasn’t going to win the final race at Donington Park.

In the end, Andrea Dovizioso held onto his lead and won his first MotoGP race. Colin Edwards made his way from 15th position to finish a brilliant 2nd, Tech 3 Yamaha’s first podium of the season, and Edward’s first time on the box in far too long. Randy De Puniet raced brilliantly, reeling in Dovizioso and fending off Edwards for much of the last half of the race, and finished in 3rd. His first podium, and well deserved after his form this season. The factory Ducati riders ran in last place for the entire race, likely coming up with ways in which to torture whomever tipped them off on the weather for much of their time out on the track.

Rossi grabbed extremely valuable championship points and is now one race’s win ahead of tittle rival and team mate Lorenzo. Who watched on from his box as Rossi threw away a point scoring position only to remount and score more points. The gods of racing were not looking too kindly down on Jorge Lorenzo and Ducati it seems.

Seconds later, Casey Stoner also high-sided, but in a different section. He didn’t risk getting up, opting instead to let the corner workers lift him onto a stretcher and carry him off. He’s been deemed OK and should be fit to ride in tomorrow’s race, but his mystery illness is still affecting him and it remains to be seen how his fitness will come into play. Reports indicate that the illness is worse now than it was at the last two races.

Updates on Lorenzo’s injury are slowly coming in, and the most accurate seem to say he’s dislocated either his shoulder or collarbone and severely bruised his foot. So far, he’s still clear to race and intends to do so. Even with his two big falls he still sits on pole position. His high side in turn 5 on lap one during his rookie season last year means that if he does race, this will be his first time to do so at Laguna Seca.