Australian Casey Stoner was in no mood to play Mr Nice Guy, stamping his authority from the first corner and going away to win Moto GP’s Aragon Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday.

The Ducati rider won for the first time since last season’s Malaysian GP in a time of 42 minutes, 16.530 seconds – 5.148 seconds ahead of Honda’s Dani Pedrosa.

Pedrosa continued his chase of fellow Spaniard and overall leader Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha, who finished fourth after starting second.

Stoner’s Ducati team-mate Nicky Hayden passed Lorenzo on the final lap to finish third.

Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso crashed with one lap to race to ensure only Lorenzo and Pedrosa could still win the title with five races to go. Lorenzo leads with 284 points and Pedrosa has 228. Either rider will be the first Spanish champion since 1999.

Spanish King Juan Carlos led a minute’s silence for Moto2 rider Shoya Tomizawa, who was killed when he fell and was hit by two trailing bikes in San Marino two weeks ago.

All riders across each racing category wore a patch featuring Tomizawa’s No. 48, which was retired from Moto2 racing in honour of the Japanese rider.

Stoner was relieved to finish in the lead after a tough start that included a slip on the formation lap.

“It was a difficult race today as I was always a little bit nervous after the crash this morning and I wasn’t happy with the brakes.

“But then I started to go round comfortably,” the 2007 champion said.

“I just put my head down and did some nice, smooth and consistent laps and pulled away for the win.”

At last seemingly comfortable with his Ducati after a season of front-end-induced crash woes, Stoner signalled his determination in the opening corners, leaving Lorenzo in no doubt as to his intentions.

Pedrosa recovered from a slipup at the start that saw him drop back to fifth before quickly recovering to get past the field and pressure Stoner.

Pedrosa had won two straight races to pressure Lorenzo in the title fight.

“I had to come back after Stoner got away,” Pedrosa said. “(But) the tyres were constantly slipping out.”

Italian Valentino Rossi had a tough day, finishing well down the field, leading to speculation he might call an early end to his season and seek an operation on his injured shoulder.

Italy’s Andrea Iannone won the Moto2 race from pole position, 6.203 seconds ahead of Julian Simon of Spain.

Overall category leader Toni Elias was fourth to hold a 76 point advantage in the standings.

In the 125cc category, Pol Espargaro beat fellow Spaniard Nicolas Terol in a photo finish – by 0.050 seconds – but Terol leads Espargaro by six points in the overall standings.

Standings:

1       Jorge Lorenzo     Fiat Yamaha Team 284

2       Dani Pedrosa       Repsol Honda Team 228

3       Casey Stoner      Ducati Marlboro Team 155

4       Valentino Rossi    Fiat Yamaha Team 140

5       Andrea Dovizioso Repsol Honda Team 139

6       Ben Spies   Monster Yamaha Tech3 131

7       Nicky Hayden      Ducati Marlboro Team 125

8       Randy de Puniet  LCR Honda 81

9       Marco Melandri    San Carlo Honda Gresini 74

=      Marco Simoncelli  San Carlo Honda Gresini 74

11     Colin Edwards     Monster Yamaha Tech3 70

12     Hector Barbera    Aspar Racing Team 66

13     Alex Espargaro    Pramac Racing Team 50

14     Alvaro Bautista    Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 49

15     Loris Capirossi     Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 41

16     Mika Kallio  Pramac Racing Team 33

17     Hiroshi Aoyama   Interwetten Honda MotoGP 29

18     Alex de Angelis    Interwetten Honda 11

19     Roger Lee Hayden        LCR Honda 5

20     Kousuke Akiyoshi Interwetten Honda MotoGP 4

21     Wataru Yoshikawa        Fiat Yamaha Team 1