Jorge Lorenzo said he bided his time on the way to winning the Catalunya Grand Prix, as Dani Pedrosa was an extremely hard rival to overtake.
The MotoGP champion had to battle past Pedrosa twice during the Barcelona race, having made a mistake and relinquished the lead again shortly after first overtaking the Honda.
Yamaha man Lorenzo ultimately made a late break from Pedrosa to take victory with a five-second cushion. In the early laps he had run third as his team-mate Ben Spies attacked Pedrosa, before the American made a mistake and fell to last place.
"It was a very complicated situation because I didn't want to do any stupidity trying to overtake Ben and Dani at the limit, so I waited for my opportunity," said Lorenzo. "Ben went wide and I went into second place. For me this was a good position so I waited a little bit to see how Dani was able to keep his pace. I made a mistake and he went, but I was able to recover all the distance, and in five or six laps I saw Dani slow the pace down a little bit.
"I thought to wait a little bit to see what was going on, because it was very easy to crash - he brakes very late in most of the braking zones so it was very difficult to overtake him and not touch him.
"So I waited for a mistake, and it arrived. When I saw Dani go wide, I thought 'OK, my opportunity'. I overtook him and I thought 'if I push at the limit for two or three laps, I can open a gap', because Dani was a little uncomfortable. And that was what happened."
Lorenzo has now taken victory in three of the five MotoGP races held so far in 2012, and finished second in the other two, giving him a 20-point lead over nearest rival Casey Stoner.