Casey Stoner qualified on pole position in MotoGP, but it was his Repsol Honda teammate, Dani Pedrosa, who started in fifth place that took the lead at the first corner.

This allowed the other factory Yamaha rider and championship leader Jorge Lorenzo to move up into second place and engage in a race long battle for the win with Pedrosa.

He eventually beat Crutchlow to take fourth place whilst Dovizioso took the first podium of the year for the Tech 3 Yamaha team.

In Moto2, Marc Márquez took his fourth consecutive pole position by beating championship leader and fellow Spaniard Pol Espargaró by two-tenths of a second.

Thomas Lüthi completed the front row with Andrea Iannone in fourth place; it was these four riders who dominated the race, staying in close company for the majority of it too.

Zulfahmi Khairuddin's first front-row for any Malaysian rider, second place, failed to translate into a great result and he finished down in eighth.

Sandro Cortese and Miguel Oliveira emerged victorious in the tight battle to the line to take second and third place to complete the podium.

He was in front of the other Tech 3 Yamaha of Andrea Dovizioso, who completed the closely matched top six with a time just fourth tenths slower than Stoner's.

Michele Pirro, James Ellison, Mattia Pasini, Yonny Hernández, Danilo Petrucci and Iván Silva were sixteenth to twenty-first respectively, completing the grid on the final two rows.

Later on in the first lap, Dovizioso overtook Stoner for fourth place while Nicky Hayden dropped from seventh to tenth – first behind Stefan Bradl, then behind teammate Rossi and next behind Álvaro Bautista.

[9] Meanwhile, Stoner overtook Crutchlow to regain the position he had lost on the first lap, but the pair had already fallen two seconds behind the leading three bikes by this point.

[11] After numerous attempts, Lorenzo managed to pass Pedrosa again to take the lead of the race with 6 laps remaining with a manoeuvre down the inside of turn 10.

[12] Pedrosa had a large, unintentional wheelie entering the corner due to problems with his bike, possibly allowing the pass to happen.

[10] On the final lap, Stoner managed to pull away from Crutchlow and catch up with Dovizioso; however, he wasn't able to make a pass and take a podium place.

[7] Jorge Lorenzo won the race to take his third victory of the season in front of his home fans, extending his championship lead over Stoner to 20 points.

The Yamaha team stated that they were pleased with Ben Spies' performance, despite his fall near the start of the race – he finished in tenth place.

[28] Zulfahmi Khairuddin became the first Malaysian to ever achieve a front row start in a motorcycle Grand Prix, when he set the second fastest time for KTM.

The winner of the previous race, and Viñales' FTR Honda teammate, Louis Rossi, took the final front row spot of third place.

Fifth place went to Miguel Oliveira, the Suter rider, who was at the centre of drama late on in the session, as his swift move across the track took out Alan Techer and Brad Binder.

[31] In the warm up session, on the day of the race, Viñales once again set the fastest time, with Rossi second and Vázquez third, albeit seven-tenths off the pace.