Stoner holds off Rossi at Spain

Championship leader Casey Stoner produced an ice-cool performance to hold off a charging Valentino Rossi and claim his fourth race victory of the season in a thrilling Catalan MotoGP on Sunday.

A Spanish party !

After enjoying the raucous backing of over 85,000 fans at his home circuit, Valentino Rossi is looking forward to yet more passionate support in Barcelona this Sunday. Despite the recent success of local rider Dani Pedrosa, Rossi remains a firm favourite with the Spanish fans and always looks forward to performing for them, whether it be at Barcelona, Jerez or Valencia.

"Barcelona is always a great race for me and I've won there the last three years with Yamaha, so hopefully we can do it again," says Rossi. "I am lucky to have lots of fans in Spain, even though I have had some close rivalries with Spanish riders, and it is always a pleasure to ride in front of them. I got a fantastic reception when I won the race at Jerez earlier in the season so hopefully I can start the same kind of party in Barcelona.

"Dani Pedrosa will also have a lot of support this weekend and I expect him to be a difficult rival once again after such a good race at Mugello. Also Stoner will be strong, especially down the long straight, but Yamaha and Michelin have worked really hard to close the gap on our rivals and I think we are ready to battle with them at every track now. After Mugello we have three more races at three of my favourite tracks so hopefully we can continue with the good progress we have made recently and be back on top of the podium again!"

Vale!

Get Your Rudebox!!

Valentino Rossi led start to finish to claim the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez and, with it, the lead in the MotoGP World Championship. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa was second with Rossi’s teammate Colin Edwards third.

"Today for me was a great emotion, back to the victory after September (in Malaysia),I think," Rossi said. "So the taste of first place is unbelievable. Is a great, great pleasure.

"We work very well, so I have to thank all my team from (crew chief) Jeremy Burgess to all the guys. Today my Yamaha work very, very well and also the tires go a lot faster to the end, so I am a lot, a lot happy. Win in front of this crowd is unbelievable. I like a lot this racetrack. Last year I had bad, bad luck and also today is a great battle with Dani (Pedrosa) and so I’m very happy, also for Colin (Edwards) and for all the team, because two Yamahas on the podium mean is a great work for us."

The order of the lead trio didn’t change from the first lap to the last. Pedrosa hung close until the 14th of 27 laps when Rossi broke the one second barrier. The lead starting the second half of the race was 1.286 secs. and Rossi would more than double it before backing off to win by 1.246 seconds.

The victory gives him 46 points to 36 for Pedrosa and Marlboro Ducati’s Casey Stoner-fifth today-who share second.

"Is an important victory, because the championship is long and now we have two difficult racetracks for us, but now I just feel this moment and I have to thank you to everybody," Rossi said.

The victory, Rossi's 59th in the premier class and 85th overall, was notable for a number of reasons. It ended a five race winless streak, his longest drought since his first premier class win at Donington in 2000. It also ended a run of six different winners in six races, going back to Rossi's win last year in Malaysia. (Marco Melandri, Loris Capirossi, Toni Elias, Troy Bayliss and Casey Stoner were the other winners.) And it puts Rossi only nine wins behind all-time premier class leader Giacomo Agostini, his fellow Italian who finished his career with 68.

Rossi : It's going to be an exciting race

Former five-times MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi may have found a jump in performance to qualify second on the grid, after mixed free practice fortunes, but the Italian still believes the closing stages of Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix will be a step into the unknown.

After struggling for grip once again this morning and finishing the final free practice session way down in 18th, it was soon clear that the warmer afternoon temperatures favoured his Fiat Yamaha as he posted his fastest time of the weekend so far early in the qualifying hour.

With eight minutes to go Rossi then moved into pole position with the first of his two Michelin qualifying tyres, only to be ousted by team-mate Colin Edwards less than a minute later as the Texan set his first flying lap. The last five minutes saw the usual flurry of quick laps and position-changing amongst the leading protagonists before Rossi took the top slot once again with a lap of 1min 39.453secs - before being pushed into second by Honda-mounted home hero Dani Pedrosa, who lapped just0.051secs quicker than the Italian.

"It's been an up and down weekend for us so it's good that we've achieved our number one goal of getting onto the front row," said Rossi afterwards. "It's going to be very important for tomorrow's race I think. It was a good qualifying session and my lap was quite good, but we know it's possible to be a lot quicker because last month at the test I was more than one second faster! We knew it would be difficult to match the 1min 38.394secs I did then however, because then we had four qualifying tyres and with the new tyre restrictions now we only have two.

"With the race tyre we were struggling quite a bit yesterday and this morning it was even worse, so we were a bit worried, but we looked at the situation together with Michelin and found a good solution and this afternoon we were in much better shape. I think tyres are going to be the biggest issue tomorrow and the last ten laps especially are going to be very hard and difficult for everyone," he predicted. "I think it's going to be an exciting race for the fans!"