Dani Pedrosa dominated the motorcycling Grand Prix of Catalunya in front of his Barcelona home crowd to reduce the gap in the championship to Valentino Rossi.
The Repsol Honda rider, thanks to this second victory of the season, now lies seven points behind the Fiat Yamaha rival, who finished second in today's race.
Starting from second on the grid behind Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner, Pedrosa made a perfect getaway to lead at the first corner and never looked back. Within five laps he was over three seconds ahead of everyone else, a gap which opened to almost eight seconds with around two thirds of the race through.
Having ridden the perfect 25-lap race, Pedrosa administered his advantage towards the end to cross the line less than three seconds before Rossi, who however had his hands full in defending his position from Stoner.
Rossi, coming from three consecutive victories this season, made a great recovery from his lowly ninth slot on the grid. He didn't have the best of starts, however, as he didn't really gain any positions.
By the end of the first lap the seven-time champion was only eight, but started to make up positions on lap three when he overtook Tech 3 Yamaha's James Toseland for seventh, after which he took sixth from Nicky Hayden's factory Honda on lap five, and fifth from Randy de Puniet's LCR Honda two laps later.
Next up the road was Colin Edwards's Tech 3 Yamaha, which Rossi overtook for fourth place on lap eight. On that same lap he caught up with Stoner and with a hard-fighting Andrea Dovizioso, whose JiR Honda managed to take second from the Australian thanks to a mistake by the latter.
On lap nine Stoner managed to take the position back from the Italian rookie, but Rossi was unstoppable and overtook them both before the end of the same lap.
While Dovizioso struggled to keep up the pace with the two riders ahead of him, Stoner would not let Rossi run away from him, and in fact overtook the Italian on lap 17 when Rossi did not seem to try to defend the position.
At the beginning of the penultimate lap Rossi outbraked Stoner on the straight and opened a bit of a gap that the Australian was unable to bridge, finishing the race half a second behind the Italian.
Dovizioso, who started the race from seventh on the grid, ended up in an impressive fourth position, over seven seconds behind Stoner but five seconds ahead of Edwards and ten over Toseland.
Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen finished in seventh, while Hayden, who started from the front row, could do no better than eighth, over 20 seconds behind teammate Pedrosa.
On lap 11 Suzuki's Loris Capirossi and Honda Gresini's Alex de Angelis crashed out while fighting for tenth place, leaving the veteran rider with a fracture in his right hand. On the following lap de Puniet also retired from sixth position after a crash.
Alice Ducati's Toni Elias was black flagged on lap nine after ignoring a ride-through penalty for having jumped the start.
Pos Rider Bike Time
1. Dani Pedrosa Honda (M) 43:02.175
2. Valentino Rossi Yamaha (B) + 2.806
3. Casey Stoner Ducati (B) + 3.343
4. Andrea Dovizioso Honda (M) + 10.893
5. Colin Edwards Yamaha (M) + 16.426
6. James Toseland Yamaha (M) + 21.482
7. Chris Vermeulen Suzuki (B) + 21.548
8. Nicky Hayden Honda (M) + 22.280
9. Shinya Nakano Honda (B) + 22.375
10. John Hopkins Kawasaki (B) + 46.835
11. Marco Melandri Ducati (B) + 57.991
12. Anthony West Kawasaki (B) + 59.168
13. Sylvain Guintoli Ducati (B) +1:00.779
Retirements:
Rider Bike Laps
Randy de Puniet Honda (M) 11
Alex de Angelis Honda (B) 10
Loris Capirossi Suzuki (B) 10
Toni Elias Ducati (B) 7
ref[AS]
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