Madrid, Nov 9 (IANS): Jorge Lorenzo was crowned as the world champion for the third time in his career in MotoGP after winning the Valencia MotoGP at the Cheste Racing circuit in Valencia.

Lorenzo began the race on Sunday 7 points behind championship leader Valentino Rossi but with the advantage that Rossi started from last place on the grid after his incident with Marc Marquez in Malaysia a fortnight ago, when a kick from the Italian appeared to knock Marquez off his bike, Xinhua reported.

After a brilliant performance in qualifying Lorenzo was first on the grid and raced into a lead ahead of Marquez and Dani Pedrosa.

Starting from final place on the grid, Rossi produced a heroic ride and had already moved up to ninth by the fourth lap and with 20 laps remaining, he had moved into sixth, he would eventually move up to fourth, but by the time he had open road ahead of him the leading three were over 20 seconds ahead.

The final laps developed into a race between Lorenzo, who needed to finish ahead of at least one of the two men with him, and Marquez to see who would be first over the line.

In the end, Lorenzo held off the challenge of the two Honda rivals to win the race and the overall title, while a brave Rossi was left to perhaps rue his action from two weeks ago.