Jorge Lorenzo declared his Valencia Grand Prix victory his "greatest" race, after coming back from seventh place to beat Casey Stoner to the win.
The MotoGP champion had fallen to seventh during a fraught early battle with Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli, but once clear of the Italian rookie, Yamaha rider Lorenzo made rapid progress and overtook Stoner for the lead with six laps to go, despite Stoner having looked set to dominate for much of the weekend.
"Today has been the greatest race in all of my life - one of the most beautiful races for me," said Lorenzo. "I had a good start but then in the second corner some riders overtook me, and then Simoncelli didn't give me any facility to go forward. But I kept calm, I stayed concentrated and on every lap I was improving.
"At the end we had a very good fight with Casey and I'm just so excited with this victory."
The result was Lorenzo's ninth win of his championship-winning season, and gives him a 2010 points tally of 383 - a new record for a rider in a single season.