Dani Pedrosa won his third race of the season today in a convincing way at Motegi in Japan.  Riding his Repsol Honda Pedrosa kept defending champion Jorge Lorenzo on a Yamaha comfortably behind.  Pedrosa’s Repsol Honda teammate Casey Stoner finished a distant third after he went backwards from the lead in the first couple of laps thanks to an uncharacteristic error that saw him run off the track into the gravel.  Stoner recovered but not sufficiently to catch the leading duo.  Andrea Dovizioso on the third Repsol Honda  made a jump start and was penalized for it with a drive through in pit lane as was his arch enemy and rival Marco Simoncelli on the San Carlo Gresini Honda  for the exact same offence.  Tech3 Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow too had the same penalty for the same offence but while Marco Simoncelli and Dovizioso recovered to fourth and fifth respectively, Crutchlow could only end in eleventh.  Valentino Rossi on the Marlboro Ducati pushed Yamaha’s Ben Spies and consequently the latter dropped to the tail end of the field but recovered to finish sixth on the grid while Rossi crashed out on the first lap itself.  Rossi’s teammate Nicky Hayden on the second Marlboro Ducati did exactly what Stoner did and finished seventh while eighth place went to the Tech3 Yamaha rider Colin Edwards.  Hiroshi Aoyama on the Gresini Honda finished ninth ahead of the Pramac Ducati of Randy De Puniet.  Twelfth and thirteenth went to wild card riders Kousuke Akiyoshi and Shinichi Itoh respectively.  Akiyoshi was riding a second LCR Honda while veteran Itoh was riding an HRC team Honda liveried bike.  Alvaro Bautista on the lone Suzuki crashed out while he was in a competitive fifth place.  Other crashers included Toni Elias (LCR Honda), Damian Cudlin (Pramac Ducati) and Hector Barbera.