Rossi Takes First Win!

Today's Jerez MotoGP turned out slightly different than expected. Pedrosa got a brilliant start and led half the race from the start. Stoner followed, then Lorenzo and Rossi. Whatever problems Rossi had encountered during qualifying were certainly fixed by race time. He smoothly took Lorenzo with an inside pass, then hunted down Stoner. In real life, the expected Lorenzo/Pedrosa battle at the front followed by a Stoner/Rossi battle was missing Lorenzo. With Pedrosa by himself at the front, Rossi and Stoner swapped positions a number of times with textbook corner passes. Vale finally gapped Stoner and set out after Pedrosa. Rossi caught Pedrosa who probably thought he had the home-race won, passed him cleanly with ten laps to go and took the checkered flag by 2.7 seconds. Pedrosa held onto second with a big 8 second gap to Stoner in third. Chasing Casey from fourth, Lorenzo low-sided with four laps to go ... he was not a happy puppy. It looked like he just leaned it so far over in the corner that the wheels simply lost contact with the track. Stoner held third, followed 20 seconds back by De Puniet in fourth and an excellent ride by Melandri brought the Bad Wind Kawasaki home in fifth, followed closely by Capirossi, Edwards and Dovizioso. The "best near-vertical, stand-up wheelie across the finish line award" goes to Casey Stoner.