Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi rebounded from crashing out of the Indianapolis Grand Prix to win his home race, the San Marino Grand Prix at the Misano Adriatico circuit near his home in Tavullia, Italy.Rossi took the lead from Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa on the eighth of 28 laps. Teammate Jorge Lorenzo passed Pedrosa six laps later and set out for Rossi.But Rossi wouldn’t have it and eased away from Lorenzo in the second half of the race. He celebrated the win with a wheelie across the finish line and 2.416 seconds in hand. Pedrosa was another 7.5 seconds back in third and struggling with a misfire. The Spaniard’s Honda RC212V stopped on the final lap. Pedrosa wasn’t sure if it had run out of gas or suffered a more serious engine problem. Stranded on the track, Pedrosa stuck out his thumb and caught a lift back to Parc Ferme with San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Toni Elias. Elias ran second to Pedrosa for the first three laps before falling back through the field to finish sixth.The win, Rossi’s sixth of the season and the 103rd of his career, added five points to his championship lead. It now stands at 30, 237-207, over Lorenzo with four races to run. Pedrosa took over third with 157.”This is a great feeling! It’s taken me some time to get used to Misano and view it as a ‘home’ race because Mugello is so special to me, but I can honestly say that winning here today, in front of everyone dressed in yellow and with 46s everywhere, is a great emotion and I want to thank everyone for making it so special,” Rossi said. “Today I had to go quite carefully with the full tank at the start and I took some time to get to the front but once I was there it was great and my bike felt fantastic. We didn’t expect to be this competitive here but it’s been a perfect weekend, so I have to say a huge thank you to the team for a brilliant job. Since Indianapolis, when I made that mistake, we have been so focused and concentrated and everyone deserves this result. I was the ‘flying donkey’ today! I am happy that we are going into a month without racing with these memories and this points lead, but as we saw in Indy everything can change quickly so we will be fully focused once again in Estoril when we come back.”Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso re-passed Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi on the final lap to take fourth and deny Capirossi his best finish of the season. Elias was sixth.Finn Mika Kallio finished seventh, his best MotoGP result. Riding the Ducati Marlboro Desmosedici in place of the absent Casey Stoner, Kallio held off a charging Hayate Racing’s Marco Melandri (Kaw), with Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen a close ninth. Stoner is expected to be back for the next race in Portugal in four weeks time.Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s James Toseland was alone in 10th.Neither of the Americans made it past the first corner. Both Ducati Marlboro’s Nicky Hayden and Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Colin Edwards were taken out by San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Alex De Angelis. De Angelis tried to run up the inside of Edwards in the left, knocking the Texan off his bike and into Hayden. Edwards’ front wheel hit the rear of Lorenzo’s Yamaha, but the Spaniard wasn’t taken down.”I don’t know, man,” Edward said. “I wasn’t really involved in it apart from sliding on the ground.”We’re in Italy and occasionally we get a dumbass Italian who decides to do something heroic and it all goes pear-shaped.”Hayden said he saw “somebody out the corner of my eye coming way too fast and I gassed it.” He was “just really disappointed, [because] this weekend was by far the fastest I’ve been on race tires.” Hayden ran a strong third and fourth for most of the morning warm-up. “We had a really set-up. We could have made a really good result today.”Results:
1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
3. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
4. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)
5. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
6. Toni Elias (Honda)
7. Mika Kallio (Ducati)
8. Marco Melandri (Kawasaki)
9. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)
10. James Toseland (Yamaha)
11. Aleix Espargaro (Ducati)
12. Randy De Puniet (Honda)
13. Niccolo Canepa (Ducati)
14. Gabor Talmacsi (Honda)
DNF
Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
Nicky Hayden (Ducati)
Alex De Angelis (Honda)
