You don’t take your 99th career victory if your name isn’t Valentino Rossi, and you almost never see what happened in the final lap in today’s Catalunya race on the Montmelò circuit, if the one of the rider’s involved last name isn’t Rossi.
Valentino Rossi took one of his greatest wins ever.
Battling with his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo in the 25 lap race and on the final lap dived up on the inside of Lorenzo on the last corner, where no one ever passes, and won the race by a mere 0,095s and it was also the first race to be decided on the the last lap since Estoril, 2006.
Casey Stoner, who was suffering from severe stomach pains, was able to stay with the Yamaha pair matching lap for lap for the first 9 laps, but starting dropping off and was completely drained and exhausted when he got to the parc ferme, after holding off Andrea Dovizioso by 0,052s for third place.
Andrea Dovizioso finished fourth again for the third time.
Loris Capirossi took fifth after passing an injured Dani Pedrosa on the 17th of 25 laps.
The Repsol Honda rider took an excellent sixth considering that he was ridding with a cracked thigh bone and doped up on pain killer injections.
Colin Edwards was seventh followed by Randy de Puniet, Mika Kallio and Nicky Hayden completed the top ten, his best finish of the year.
Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen was 11th in front of Alex De Angelis.
James Toseland could only manage to finish in 13th place and Marco Melandri 14th.
Yuki Takahashi crashed out as did Toni Elias, while Sete Gibernau, finished 15th and Ducati Pramac’s Niccolò Canepa 16th.
Gabor Talmacsi finished 17th and last, but it was also his first premier GP race after only two days on the Scot Racing Honda.
Rossi, Lorenzo and Stoner have now won two races each this season and are tied at 106 points each in the 2009 MotoGP World Championship.
