Spaniard Dani Pedrosa gave the home crowd a first-class display, riding his Honda over the finish line to victory in the Catalunya leg of the MotoGP world championship here.
Pedrosa took an early lead on the track which is only 20km from his home and finished well ahead of Italy’s Valentino Rossi, who dominated a tight battle for second with Australia’s reigning world champion Casey Stoner.
“I’m very happy. I’d like to thank my supporters for giving me a big boost,” said Pedrosa.
“I don’t know where the pace came from. It was a fantastic race, amazing to win. I won in 125cc and 250cc here, so now to win in MotoGP is great,” he added.
“The other two (Rossi and Stoner) were pushing hard. I went to a different setting than yesterday, and it worked,” he added.
Reigning MotoGP champion Casey Stoner battled for second spot with Rossi for many laps, but the rear wheel of his Marlboro Ducati kept trying to step out, and he had to settle for third. James Toseland thrilled British fans by battling to his fourth sixth place in seven outings on his Tech 3 Yamaha, despite being nudged off the track by Rossi early in the race. Toseland had to veer on to the asphalt outside the first corner which forced him to drop down to 11th place.
“I tried to overtake him and he released the brakes, I released the brakes, he released the brakes and then he went a bit wide,” Rossi said. In other words, that’s racing. But Toseland hacked away at some of MotoGP’s biggest names, including former world champions Nicky Hayden (Repsol Honda) and Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki), to hoist himself to seventh in the championship table.
“What a race! I’m very happy; I had a lot of fun with overtaking. I’m pleased with 20 points, but knew that if we were going to beat Dani (Pedrosa) then we’d have to start at the front,” said Rossi.
“For some reason we had no rear-feeling entering the corners from the first lap. I lost a lot of confidence because in these corners you need hard braking as you’re cornering,” said the Australian.
“I wasn’t happy at all with my riding today. In the end it was just a battle with Vale (Rossi) at the end - he was close to me a few times, I could feel him. I have to be happy with a podium in any case.”
“Today’s battle (with Stoner) was not just about second place. I’ve lost five points to Pedrosa, but my 20 points here are important for the championship,” said Rossi.
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