Valentino Rossi brought the house down once again in Mugello with an emotional seventh straight victory at his home track in front of 96,000 adoring fans. It was the Fiat Yamaha Team Rider’s ninth win in total and fifth for Yamaha at this track and also his third win in a row this season, the first time he has won three consecutive races since 2005. His 91st victory is also a first for Bridgestone at this track.
Starting from pole for the first time in almost a year, Rossi set nerves on edge when he slipped a few places at the start, exiting turn one in fourth. He soon passed his compatriot Loris Capirossi however and crossed the line for the first time hot on the heels of Stoner and Pedrosa. Lap three saw him pass Pedrosa and then Stoner next time around, leaving him in the lead. From then on it was the Italian’s race and he stretched the gap to more than three seconds at one point, before rolling off slightly in the later stages as the temperature increased. He eventually crossed the line 2.201 seconds clear of Stoner, with his army of yellow-clad tifosi singing him home from the hillsides before invading the track, as is tradition here, and swarming under the podium.
It was a day of contrasts for the Fiat Yamaha Team as Jorge Lorenzo, in his 100th Grand Prix, slid out of the race on lap seven when looking strong in sixth place. Rossi is now 12 points clear of Pedrosa at the top of the championship and Lorenzo is 16 points off him in third. The team now heads directly to Barcelona for the Catalunya Grand Prix in just seven day’s time.
Valentino Rossi 1st 42’31.153: “After winning the championship, winning at Mugello is the next best thing for me and once again today it was like a dream. There is no way to describe the feeling I have standing on the podium in front of all of my fans here and I am so happy that I could win once again today. To win for the seventh time running at my home track is amazing but I felt quite a lot of pressure about this, so it’s a relief as well because I didn’t want to disappoint everyone! It’s been a hard weekend for everyone because of the bad weather and the lack of dry track time, but my crew have done a fantastic job with the bike and my M1 was wonderful today. Once I got to the front I was able to make a gap from the others but towards the end it was unbelievably hot and it became quite hard to ride. I wanted to ease off a bit but Casey was pushing hard behind so I had to keep going.
Thanks to all of my team, to the engineers and of course to Bridgestone! I’m really glad that I’ve been the one to give them their first win at this track and they did a great job today because my tyre worked virtually the same from start to finish. It’s been a fantastic day, it’s always one of the best moments of the year for me and now we’ve made a bit more of the gap at the top of the championship so things couldn’t be better. Honestly after this weekend I think I would like to go to bed for five days but now we have to go straight to Barcelona!”
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