Jorge Lorenzo produced a faultless ride to win the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and extend his lead at the top of the FIM MotoGP World Championship standings.

Lorenzo kept a cool head throughout to guide his Fiat Yamaha to victory ahead of Repsol Honda's Andrea Dovizioso, with the Tech 3 Yamaha of Ben Spies in third place.

The 24-year-old Spaniard now holds a commanding 37-point lead over Dovizioso in the championship and was a convincing winner of the first race at Silverstone for 24 years.

Reigning champion and crowd favourite Valentino Rossi was absent as he recovers from the broken leg he sustained in Mugello a fortnight ago and his young team-mate now looks favourite to add the MotoGP crown to the two 250cc championships he won in 2006 and 2007.

Lorenzo was runner-up to the peerless Rossi in the standings last year but was smooth in taking his third win of the season and is certainly the man to beat this time around.

While no rider can boast the same support as Rossi, Lorenzo is attempting to mimic his team-mate's crowd-pleasing antics and found time to pose with three friends on his victory lap dressed as The Beatles.

He said: "It was a very important day. It was a race where it was easy to crash and make a mistake but I concentrated hard and won the race.

"I was confident before the race. I expected Dani Pedrosa to follow me for four or five laps but he came past straight away. I was surprised but I focussed on my race and soon came back.

"I have changed my mentality. After Mugello I was worried that the crash of Valentino would affect my mind but I have worked on it and concentrated on enjoying myself and riding my bike.

"What will be will be at the end of the season. I am doing better than I expected and now we race again in Assen in six days time.

"Normally I have some music on my ipod before the race and we are in England so it was nice to make a homage to The Beatles.

"The crowd are crazy about bikes here and we hope that Silverstone continues to be on the circuit for a long, long time."

Lorenzo started from pole position and made a clean start before swapping the lead twice with Pedrosa in the first half of the opening lap.

Marco Melandri was the first retirement when he crashed out at Luffield before Frenchman Randy de Puniet passed Pedrosa to take second spot.

Lorenzo was then able to reel off a flurry of fast laps and had opened up a lead of three seconds by lap six, before Pedrosa's Repsol Honda team-mate Dovizioso moved up the field into second spot.

De Puniet scored a podium finish at the rain-soaked Donington Park race last summer and looked like continuing his form in the UK when he regained second place soon after.

However Dovizioso - who won that race - soon blasted past and the Marlboro Ducati of Nicky Hayden took third position with three laps to go.

Lorenzo cruised home 6.743 seconds clear of Dovizioso, while Spies slotted past his fellow American Hayden on the final lap to pick up a maiden podium finish.

The 2007 champion Casey Stoner was fifth, with de Puniet having to settle for sixth on the LCR Honda.

Earlier, British rider Scott Redding recorded a season-best fourth place in the Moto2 race while Oxfordshire's Bradley Smith scored a podium finish with third in the 125cc class.