Results and summary of Misano MotoGP race:
Valentino Rossi struck a decisive blow in the title race at Misano today, taking victory in front of a delirious home crowd. Rossi had to fight his way forward, after Dani Pedrosa and Toni Elias had gotten away early, and Jorge Lorenzo had passed Rossi for third. But by lap 8, Rossi was with Pedrosa, Elias having dropped back, and a lap later he was into the lead.
This put Pedrosa between Rossi and Lorenzo, and bought Rossi enough time to build a gap over the Honda and his team mate. Lorenzo took another 7 laps to get passed his countryman, after which Rossi was too far gone to be caught. Rossi then put in an extra push to put another second into his team mate, and victory was his. The 5 points Rossi took over Lorenzo extended his title lead to 30 points, with 4 races to go. Rossi now has a firm grip on the title, the championship slipping away from Lorenzo with every race.
Pedrosa was 3rd, with another huge gap back to 4th, where an entertaining battle raged, Andrea Dovizioso finally beating out Loris Capirossi. Toni Elias finished 6th. Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden got taken out in Turn 2 by Alex de Angelis, the local boy suffering a rush of blood to the head.
Result:
| Pos. | No. | Rider | Manufacturer | Time | Diff |
| 1 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | YAMAHA | 44'32.882 | |
| 2 | 99 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 44'35.298 | 2.416 |
| 3 | 3 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 44'45.282 | 12.400 |
| 4 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | HONDA | 44'59.212 | 26.330 |
| 5 | 65 | Loris CAPIROSSI | SUZUKI | 44'59.421 | 26.539 |
| 6 | 24 | Toni ELIAS | HONDA | 45'01.168 | 28.286 |
| 7 | 36 | Mika KALLIO | DUCATI | 45'03.066 | 30.184 |
| 8 | 33 | Marco MELANDRI | KAWASAKI | 45'04.639 | 31.757 |
| 9 | 7 | Chris VERMEULEN | SUZUKI | 45'04.791 | 31.909 |
| 10 | 52 | James TOSELAND | YAMAHA | 45'11.229 | 38.347 |
| 11 | 44 | Aleix ESPARGARO | DUCATI | 45'19.555 | 46.673 |
| 12 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | HONDA | 45'24.923 | 52.041 |
| 13 | 88 | Niccolo CANEPA | DUCATI | 45'36.080 | 1'03.198 |
| 14 | 41 | Gabor TALMACSI | HONDA | 45'55.229 | 1'22.347 |
| Not finished first lap | |||||
| 15 | Alex DE ANGELIS | HONDA | |||
| 5 | Colin EDWARDS | YAMAHA | |||
| 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | |||
Comments
Lorenzo
Lorenzo proved his skillfulness in the whole DeAngelis thing by staying up at all. If you watch it, his back tire gets hit as hard as Hayden's, (it looks like about the same). However, Lorenzo manages to stay up as Nicky goes down. Jorge came perilously close to being 50 points back again.
Well, as I saw it, Jorge was
Well, as I saw it, Jorge was hit more directly from behind, and Nicky was hit more from the side (as he moved past the crashing bikes of De Angelis and Edwards), so I don't think Nicky had much of a chance to control things once he got hit. He had gambled trying to burst past the incident, but he was caught up in it and taken out by it instead. Any other opinions on this?
That's exactly the way I saw
That's exactly the way I saw it.
Torpedo Strike!
Poorly executed move early in the race and in Edwards and Lorenzo's (one lucky, one not so lucky) case with potential title ramifications. It surely didn't help DeAngelis employment outlook any at Tech 3 or Ducati.