RIO DE JANEIRO -- Italy's Valentino Rossi cruised to his fourth consecutive Brazilian Grand Prix win on Saturday to extend his lead in the MotoGP world championship.

The race was effectively settled after the 24-year-old, who could clinch his third successive world championship in Motegi in Japan on October 5, overtook Spain's Sete Gibernau on the ninth lap.

Gibernau finished second while Japan's Makoto Tamada was third to claim the first podium of his career and complete a clean sweep for Honda.

Rossi, who also won the last two races in Brno and Estoril, has 262 points in the world championship, 51 ahead of Gibernau with four races left.

Rossi can wrap up the title if he wins in Japan and Gibernau fails to score a point, Reuters reported.

Rossi has never been beaten at the Nelson Piquet circuit in any category. He won the 125cc race in 1997, the 250cc race in 1999 and the top category -- 500cc in 2000 and 2001 and MotoGP in 2002 and 2003 -- ever year since.

"I like this track, it's very good for me and today we set the bike very well, today the bike was perfect," said Rossi, who had a winning time of 44 minutes 36.633 seconds. "My target is to keep this standard until the end of the season."

Gibernau, who has four victories this season to Rossi's six, was happy with his performance after crashing at the end of Friday's final qualifying session.