Fiat Yamaha's
Valentino Rossi picked up his fourth win of the season by nipping Repsol Honda's
Dani Pedrosa at the finish line by a slim 0.175 second. Finishing third behind the lead duo was Marlboro Ducati's championship leader
Casey Stoner. The win by Rossi holds a special place in the history books as it represents the 200th Grand Prix victory by an Italian rider. Rossi is now only six wins behind the legendary Giacomo Agostini who has 68 career wins to his credit.
Valentino Rossi: "First of all I want to dedicate this victory to Colin McRae, who sadly died yesterday. Colin is one of my idols from when I was very young and it's because of him that I have my passion for rally. It's a very sad day for motorsport and I am glad that I could win for him today."
Rossi made amends for Yamaha and the latest version of the pneumatic valve M1, which failed in its debut at Misano, and narrows Stoner's lead to 76 points heading into round fifteen of the eighteen round championship.
"This is a very important victory for us in every way, it's the fourth one of the year so the numbers are starting to look a little bit better, and it's a great, great emotion to win again after so long without even a podium," said Rossi. "Today my Yamaha and my tires worked very well. Our new engine is better and today I was able to keep in the slipstream of the Honda and the Ducati on the straight, and even to go alongside them at some points, so this is very important. Michelin have done some good work on the tires and today we were maybe stronger than our rivals. Once a gain we've shown that when the tires are working well we can fight at the top. I had a great battle with Casey but most of all with Dani and it was fantastic fun to ride like this again, at the maximum and with a lot of good passes. When I passed Dani for the first time I tried to go but he was too good so I knew it was going to come down to the last few laps. At the end Dani started to slide a little and I knew I was stronger on the brakes than him in some places, so I was able to make a good pass. When I came out of the last corner on the second to last lap I could only think about how I lost the championship there last year so I knew I had to be far enough ahead next time around! I want to thank Yamaha, Michelin, my team and everyone around me, this is a great day and it's given us a lot of confidence to keep fighting to the end of the season."
For Stoner, a third place finish doesn't hurt his championship hopes any. The Australian rode a heady race resisting the urge to mix it up with the front runners, instead riding conservatively enough to finish with good points.
Pole-sitter Nicky Hayden finished fourth ahead of Marco Melandri and John Hopkins who had a great race compared to his teammate Chris Vermeulen he experienced some sort of issues with his bike that relegated him to 13th place.
"I got a great start which is becoming a bit of a regular feature - so I need to keep that up! I made up as many positions as I could at the start, but I got stuck behind Marco and Nicky and they were getting kind of crazy at the beginning - they were all over the place passing each other," explained Hopkins. "From then on Nicky pulled away and Marco was just gapping me coming out of the corners and I couldn't find a consistent line to enable me to get up close enough to be able to pass him. I did get by him towards the end but I made some mistakes and he came back past me. The Suzuki worked great and the Bridgestones - compared to last year - were awesome and congratulations to them for getting on to the podium. It's now time to go to Japan. I know the Suzuki and the Bridgestone tires will work well at Motegi so I can't wait to get there. I went back into fourth in the championship today, but lost a bit to Dani so we'll have to see if we can claw him back a bit in the next couple of races."
Round 15 of the MotoGP World Championship will be the Grand Prix of Japan at Motegi on Sunday, September 23.
MotoGP Results:
1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
3. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
4. Nicky Hayden (Honda)
5. Marco Melandri (Honda)
6. John Hopkins (Suzuki)
7. Carlos Checa (Honda)
8. Toni Elias (Honda)
9. Loris Capirossi (Ducati)
10. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
11. Shinya Nakano (Honda)
12. Anthony West (Kawasaki)
13. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)
14. Sylvain Guintoli (Yamaha)
DNF: Makoto Tamada (Yamaha)
DNF: Alex Barros (Ducati)
DNF: Randy De Puniet (Kawasaki)
DNF: Alex Hofmann (Ducati)
DNF: Kurtis Roberts (Team KR)
