Valentino Rossi celebrated his fifth win of the season at the British Grand Prix, but most of the action took place behind the Italian, including a second successive crash by Norick Abe.
Valentino Rossi celebrated his fifth win of the season at the British Grand Prix, but most of the action took place behind the Italian, including a second successive crash by Norick Abe.
Rossi started from pole position on Sunday and after losing the lead to Loris Capirossi and dropping several places, swiftly moved back into the lead. That was where he remained for the entire race, opening up a two second gap over Honda team mates, Colin Edwards and Sete Gibernau.
“This was an amazing race, I’m very happy,” Rossi said after the race. “I got a good start and I knew my rhythm was going to be good as it had been in qualifying.”
“Colin and Sete were very strong but I just concentrated on keeping my pace going. The crowd here were amazing and, as always at Donington, it is very special to win here.”
Edwards passed his team mate Gibernau to seal second place and with it his first ever MotoGP podium after making the switch from the World Superbikes series last season.
Gibernau took third place in the race, a welcome result after crashing out of his last two races.
Troy Bayliss and Nicky Hayden came to blows over fourth place before Hayden passed the Ducati rider to claim the spot. Carlos Checa finished sixth and Loris Capirossi dropped through the field after his early lead to finish seventh.
Norick Abe, who cracked two ribs in an encounter with Marco Melandri’s bike at the Sachsenring last weekend, crashed out of his second successive race. After rising from seventeenth to eighth position with two laps to go, Abe lost control of his Yamaha and was flung into the air before coming to land on the Donington track.
Abe’s accident allowed John Hopkins to move into eighth place, ahead of Alex Barros and Neil Hodgson, who finished tenth in the last race before the teams take a break.
Last week’s winner, Max Biaggi, who started the race just one point from Rossi, was not in high spirits as he slipped backwards to eventually finish twelfth almost one minute behind the winner.