Valentino Rossi dominates San Marino MotoGP to take first win since June 2013
YOU couldn’t script it better. Valentino Rossi took his first win of the MotoGP season at Misano, just a stone’s throw from his home.
YOU could not have scripted it better. Valentino Rossi, riding at the track that is a stone’s throw from his home, took his first win of the MotoGP season in San Marino in front of a rapturous local crowd.
The nine-time world champion took his 107th race win across all of MotoGP’s classes in fine style, heading home Spanish Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo, with Dani Pedrosa rounding out the podium.
And for the critics of his last victory, 15 months ago at Assen, there are no asterisks that can be placed next to his latest triumph.
All of MotoGP’s four ‘aliens’ are fit and healthy. There was no wet weather to mix up the order. Yes, Marc Marquez crashed, but the title leader looked to be racing for second place, anyway.
Misano was purely a masterclass by ‘The Doctor’, demolishing his rivals in a way we haven’t seen in nearly five years.
Marquez would recover to finish 15th after his slip in the early laps and trailing at the back of the field for most of the contest.
The Italian eclipsed his mercurial form so far this season with a composed and determined performance which he admitted was helped by Marquez’s misfortune.
“I’m very happy. It was a great race,” an ecstatic Rossi told Sky Sports. “Obviously incidents like the one affecting Marquez don’t happen very often. “But today we knew we had a great chance to win this race.
“I really enjoyed the race, so many people, so many fans. It was a perfect day.”
It was Rossi’s 81st win in the sport’s elite class, allowing the 35-year-old Italian to become the first rider to reach 5000 career points.
Lorenzo, Rossi, and Marquez - who had a great start from fourth - exploded off the grid and opened up a small gap as early as the first lap, with Iannone, Andrea Dovizioso and Pedrosa leading the chasing pack.
Rossi, however, soon had the thousands of local fans in the stands on their feet with a deft overtaking move on Lorenzo.
By lap six Lorenzo’s gap to Rossi began to grow and three laps later the Italian was given a further boost when Marquez lost control on a bend and had to be given help by officials to get going again.
As Rossi pushed on solo, Marquez slipped down the field and virtually out of contention.
The Italian was left virtually unchallenged for most of the remainder, keeping Lorenzo at arms-length with a gap of over two seconds, before easing off on the final tour to cross the line 1.578 seconds ahead of the Spaniard, with Pedrosa a further 2.7 seconds back.
Dovizioso capped off yet another strong race for Ducati by finishing just 1.3 seconds off the podium, with quasi-teammate Iannone rounding out the top five.
Australia’s Broc Parkes finished a distant 18th, the first rider home to be lapped.
With five championship races remaining Marquez remains leader on 289 points but has seen Pedrosa (215) and Rossi (214) close the gap to 74 and 75 points respectively.
RESULTS - MotoGP Round 13, San Marino Grand Prix, Misano (28 laps)
1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 44m14.586s
2. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) +1.578s
3. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) +4.276s
4. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) +5.510s
5. Andrea Iannone (Ducati) +11.771s
6. Pol Espargaro (Yamaha) +18.999s
7. Bradley Smith (Yamaha) +23.100s
8. Alvaro Bautista (Honda) +36.458s
9. Cal Crutchlow (Ducati) +38.480s
10. Yonny Hernandez (Ducati) +45.878s
11. Karel Abraham (Honda) +54.765s
12. Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) +56.775s
13. Scott Redding (Honda) +1m02.734s
14. Alex de Angelis (Forward Yamaha) +1m13.546s
15. Marc Marquez (Honda) +1m15.948s
16. Leon Camier (Honda) +1m20.760s
17. Michael Laverty (PBM) +1m26.422s
18. Broc Parkes (PBM) 27 laps
19. Hector Barbera (Avintia) 27 laps
DNF Aleix Espargaro (Forward Yamaha) 27 laps
DNF Stefan Bradl (Honda) 6 laps
DNF Danilo Petrucci (ART) 1 lap
DNF Mike Di Meglio (Avintia) 0 laps