Casey Stoner soaked up late-race pressure from home hero
Jorge Lorenzo to claim his first ever victory in the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, round two of the new 1000cc era and the first on European asphalt.
After wet practice, dry qualifying and a damp warm-up, the grand prix took place on a patchy track and began with second on the grid
Dani Pedrosa pinching the holeshot from pole sitter Lorenzo into turn one.
Meanwhile world champion Stoner, who had slipped to third after arm pump problems in the Losail season opener, initially retained his fifth on the grid.
Stoner then fought his way past Cal Crutchlow, Andrea Dovizioso, Nicky Hayden, Lorenzo and Pedrosa during the entertaining early stages, which saw some hectic out-braking moves, side-by-side racing and contact on more than one occasion.
Things settled down from lap 5 onwards, when Stoner and Lorenzo began to pull away. In turn, Stoner began to inch away from Stoner during the middle stages - but Lorenzo suddenly closed back in on the Australian with nine laps to go.
The pair were rarely separated by more than half-a-second for the remainder of the race, but Qatar winner Lorenzo was unable to make the move needed to claim his third
Jerez win in a row.
Stoner had only taken one podium from his ten previous
Jerez starts, in all classes, and called his 41st GP win "one of his best".
Behind them, Pedrosa spent much of the race defending third from a combative Crutchlow, the pair almost catching the leaders in the latter stages as Pedrosa denied the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider his first podium by just 0.4s.
Crutchlow, also fourth in round one, set the fastest lap of the race.
Crutchlow's team-mate Dovizioso eventually settled into a safe fifth while Hayden, starting from his first front row since 2010, slipped back to seventh after his early heroics - finishing behind satellite Honda riders Alvaro Bautista and rookie Stefan Bradl.