Jorge Lorenzo started thinking about his wheelie with six laps to go Sunday afternoon. He got bored with a lead that reached more than 13 seconds. He had that kind of time and was that far ahead.

It couldn’t just be a typical celebratory lift of his No. 99 Fiat Yamaha motorcycle. In the country of excess, he wanted it to be a one-wheel wonder to remember. The 22-year-old Spaniard exited the 16th and final turn, raised that bike high, then held it.

And held it. And held it. All the way down the front straightaway at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Just before the finish line, he kicked his legs out wide to punctuate his moment of glory as a runaway winner of the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.

“Six laps to go, I was thinking, ‘Oh no, maybe on the straight I may not be able to do the wheelie,’ " Lorenzo said. "But every lap I see, I say, ‘OK, maybe I will try.’

“So I try and I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to do 100 meters only or 200 meters, but I did almost one kilometer (more than half a mile).”

His exuberance could be understood for several reasons, not the least of which was what happened to teammate and six-time world champion Valentino Rossi. The man MotoGP riders always have to chase, the legend who never seems to make a mistake, did.

Stalking Lorenzo on the 10th lap, Rossi lost control and slid through the second turn and into the grass. Coupled with pole sitter Dani Pedrosa’s low-side crash in the 15th turn of the fourth lap, it was a most unexpected reversal of fortune.

“I was pushing very hard at the start of the race,” Pedrosa said of his No. 3 Repsol Honda bike, “and perhaps I pushed too much.”

Lorenzo knows the feeling. He crashed out of the previous two races and thought he had blown any chance at a possible first title. But just like that, with Rossi’s non-classified run resulting in no points and Lorenzo gaining 25, the winner cut the leader’s lead in half to 25 with five races to go.

“In the world championship, if you want to win, you have to always be at the limit,” Lorenzo said. "The last two races I was at the limit and I crashed. So I was disappointed.

“Today, the situation changed completely.”

Three of Lorenzo’s four MotoGP victories have come this season, but this might have been the most important because he once again has a chance to dethrone the reigning world champion.

“Now, I say it’s difficult but not impossible,” he said. “It’s possible.”

The feel-good stories didn’t just end with Lorenzo. Runner-up Alex de Angelis, San Marino, and third-place rider Nicky Hayden, Owensboro, Ky., have been humbled so much this season, reaching the podium seemed like victory.

It was a career-best run for de Angelis, who is without a ride after this season.

“I hadn’t really expected it,” he said through an interpreter. “Maybe the team expected it more than me.”

It was just the second podium in two years for Hayden, a runner-up at Indy last year. His Ducati ride has been offered to three others, including Lorenzo and Pedrosa.

“Everybody knows what a hard season it’s been,” said Hayden, a 2006 world champion for Repsol Honda. “It’s been the biggest challenge of my life.”

Lorenzo didn’t realize his greatest challenger was gone a lap after he had passed Rossi at the end of the front straight. Unlike other races at IMS, riders don’t have radios in their helmets or benefit from spotters. Instead, they rely on crew members holding sign boards on the straight.

At nearly 200 mph, Lorenzo thought his board read “0,” which would have meant less than a one-second lead. But it read “6.” He realized Rossi had crashed the next time by. The lead grew to 13.1 seconds in the 28-lap race until the wheelie scrubbed the final margin of victory to 9.435.

A crowd of 75,130 scattered around the course saw at least some form of Lorenzo’s celebrations. He was too much of a showman to settle for just a wheelie.

He’s a huge fan of superheroes, so a crew member latched a Captain America shield to his right arm for the parade lap. It was the same emblem painted on the back of the helmet he unveiled for this race.

The shield fell off as he sped around the 2.621-mile road course. But Lorenzo wasn’t finished.

Stealing a page from three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, he also climbed the fence in the first turn where the Indy cars race.

“I wanted to celebrate with the fans like Speed-erman,” his accent fracturing the Spider-man name.