Valentino Rossi finished third behind Fiat Yamaha team mate Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa while Australia's Casey Stoner finished sixth at the Portuguese MotoGP at Estoril.

Double 250cc champion Lorenzo, carving out a burgeoning reputation in the top class category having Saturday bagged his third straight pole in setting a new lap record of 1min 35.715sec, gleefully sank to his knees to salute a sizeable Spanish contingent after a maiden career triumph.

He has yet to finish off the podium - whereas Rossi stretched his winless streak to seven races.

Lorenzo was quickly out of the blocks to shrug off Rossi's early attack on Pedrosa, who slipped briefly out of the podium placings as the rain began to fall.

The slippery conditions complicated matters to a degree but failed to faze Lorenzo.

"It went off very well, it's my first win and I'm very happy," said the 20-year-old from Mallorca, who was quite happy to chance his arm where necessary on a difficult track marked by heavy braking zones and bumpy straights.

"I always remember going past Valentino, taking some risk," he told reporters.

Rossi was sanguine about his result, which he said was satisfying overall.

"It's not a bad result for us," said the Italian, while adding he would nonetheless be chasing the win in the Chinese GP on May 4.

After the fierce jockeying between the front trio in the opening dozen laps an exciting attack by Lorenzo saw him edge ahead by less than half a second with 16 laps to go coming out of the straight.

He swiftly pushed that lead out to 1sec as Rossi struggled fully to maintain his impetus, allowing Pedrosa back into second as the Italian fell 5sec back off the pace.

Another Italian, Andrea Dovizioso, looked set to challenge for the podium before a fall on the 16th lap.

Standings after Round 3

AAP