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Phillip Island, Australia. Six-time MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi takes an 18-point lead into Sunday’s pivotal Australian leg of the championship ahead of title rival Jorge Lorenzo.

The Italian great, only the second rider in history to claim world titles in all three classes, is in the driver’s seat for a seventh world elite crown with three races left in the championship.

Rossi’s lead was cut by Fiat Yamaha teammate Lorenzo at the last MotoGP in Portugal after the Spaniard downed Australian Casey Stoner with the Italian in a distant fourth place.

Rossi won five consecutive MotoGP/500cc Australian titles from 2001 to 2005 but has had to settle for podium finishes in the last three years, with Stoner winning his last two home MotoGPs from start to finish.

In 12 visits to Phillip Island, Rossi has only once failed to finish on the podium across all classes.

The 2009 MotoGP world title has boiled down to a fight between Rossi and Lorenzo, with Stoner closing to within three points of Spain’s Dani Pedrosa for third spot in the championship.

“This is the key moment in the championship with the three final races in a short period, so now we will see who can become the champion,” Rossi said.

Fiat Yamaha has dominated this season’s MotoGP manufacturers’ title, and Lorenzo’s victory was the 10th for a Yamaha rider this year. Lorenzo and Rossi have alternated wins since the Italian won in the Czech Republic on Aug. 16, and a win for either here will equal the longest sequence of successive victories for Yamaha in the premier class, a feat it achieved last year.

Stoner, who sat out three races with illness before rejoining the championship in Portugal, is confident the worst is behind him and he is looking to finish the season on a high for his Ducati team.

“My bike has been working at a really good level, and it is nice to know that I can come back and be competitive,” Stoner said.

Honda Repsol rider Pedrosa recovered from his crash and subsequent 10th-place finish at Indianapolis on Aug. 30 by finishing third in Misano and Estoril.

The last two MotoGPs after Phillip Island will be staged at Sepang in Malaysia (Oct. 25) and Valencia, Spain (Nov. 8).

Agence France-Presse