Valentino Rossi made it five MotoGP wins in a row at the Italian Grand Prix when he held off the challenge of Loris Capirossi yesterday.
The five-times MotoGP champion, who failed to finish the last two rounds of competition in China and France, took the lead a lap and a half from the end to win by 0.575 seconds on the twisting circuit at Mugello in the hills north of Florence.
The victory was only Italian Rossi's second of the year after he triumphed in Qatar in April. American Nicky Hayden finished third.
The result left Hayden and Italy's Capirossi level on 99 points at the top of the championship standings after six races. Marco Melandri slipped back to third on 89 points after finishing sixth.
Yamaha rider Rossi, meanwhile, relaunched the defence of his title, climbing to fifth overall on 65 points.
"It was a huge battle with Capirossi. In the end I think we were both winners," Rossi said.
"I had some problems with the back of the bike, but I managed to handle them. This was an unforgettable race."
Rossi rode aggressively from the start, closing up on pole-sitter Sete Gibernau into the hairpin at the end of the straight before slipping inside him on the third bend.
The two men were in a different class from the rest of the riders at the start of the 23-lap race.
By the seventh lap they had established a one-second advantage over a chasing group of four, which included Honda rider Hayden and Gibernau's Ducati team-mate Capirossi, who was paying for a poor start off second on the grid.
Capirossi's mid-race charge, however, pulled the chasers back into the hunt.
Fastest lap
The little Italian, who has finished on the podium twice in the past three years at Mugello, set a succession of fastest laps to move up to third by the end of lap 12.
Even he, though, must have been surprised at how easily he took the lead at the start of lap 15 when Rossi misjudged the hairpin to drop briefly back to fifth.
Rossi's recovery was aided by Melandri, who ran on to the grass to effectively end his chances of winning the race, while Gibernau seemed to lose his rhythm and fell more than a second off the lead.
Capirossi twice shut out Rossi at the start of lap 20 to keep control but was powerless to stop him diving past at the slow Materassi chicane midway through the following lap.
Capirossi made one last attempt to retake the lead when he braked late going into the hairpin at the start of the final lap, but he could not hold his line and Rossi roared back on the inside before holding on comfortably for the victory.
In the 250cc race, Jorge Lorenzo got his championship bid back on track after a barren run of results by ducking inside Alex de Angelis on the final bend to grab his third victory of the season.
The win lifted the Spaniard from fifth to second in the overall standings with 88 points, 20 points behind Italy's Andrea Dovizioso, who finished third at Mugello.
Home rider Mattia Pasini won the 125cc race by one thousandth of a second from Spain's Alvaro Bautista.
Leading drivers' standings...
MotoGP: 1. L. Capirossi (Italy) Ducati, N. Hayden (US) Honda 99; 3. M. Melandri (Italy) Honda 89; 4. D. Pedrosa (Spain) Honda 86; 5. C. Stoner (Australia) Honda, V. Rossi (Italy) Yamaha 65; 7. T. Elias (Spain) Honda 53; 8. C. Edwards (US) Yamaha 49; 9. S. Gibernau (Spain) Ducati 44; 10. M. Tamada (Japan) Honda 40.
250cc: 1. A. Dovizioso (Italy) Honda 108; 2. J. Lorenzo (Spain) Aprilia 88; 3. Y. Takahashi (Japan) Honda 80; 4. H. Barbera (Spain) Aprilia 78; 5. H. Aoyama (Japan) KTM 75; 6. R. Locatelli (Italy) Aprilia 67; 7. A. De Angelis (San Marino) Aprilia 55; 8. S. Guintoli (France) Aprilia 43; 9. M. Simoncelli (Italy) Gilera 40; 10. S. Aoyama (Japan) Honda 34.
125cc: 1. A. Bautista (Spain) Aprilia 119; 2. M. Kallio (Finland) KTM 88; 3. M. Pasini (Italy) Aprilia 74; 4. H. Faubel (Spain) Aprilia, S. Gadea (Spain) Aprilia 67; 6. L. Pesek (Czech Rep.) Derbi 55; 7. J. Simon (Spain) KTM 46; 8. T. Luethi (Switzerland) Honda 44; 9. G. Talmacsi (Hungary) Honda 44; 10. S. Corsi (Italy) Gilera 43.