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Rossi charges to victory at Mugello
03 June 2007 / Results / PhotosValentino Rossi took victory in front of his home crowd at the Italian Grand Prix after dropping down to ninth at the start. Honda Repsol's Dani Pedrosa took second place as the Michelin riders showed their dominance on the dry track. Alex Barros was a surprise third ahead of pole-sitter Casey Stoner, who was unable to deliver Ducatti a dream victory in front of its home crowd.
The race started dry with everyone's eyes on Dani Pedrosa starting on the third row, who had been fastest in the dry all weekend. Casey Stoner got away in front with Chris Vermeulen defending his second place as crowd favourite Loris Capirossi jumped upto third. Meanwhile, the rest of the field got away cleanly whilst Valentino Rossi's poor start put him down to ninth. Loris Capirossi then found a way past Vermeulen much to the delight of the home crowd as the Ducatti pair went one-two. Capirossi looked unstoppable as he found a way past his team-mate on the straight to take the lead. Lower down the field Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet retired after crashing, confirming a bad start for the team as Olivier Jacque, who started on the second row had dropped down to 12th.
The Ducatti riders were not able to enjoy their one-two for long due to increasing pressure from Dani Pedrosa and Marco Melandri. Capirossi fell down to sixth on lap six as Stoner scrapped for the lead with Pedrosa. Stoner lost out and then the charging Rossi took advantage to secure second behind Pedrosa. The two Michelin riders then started to pull away in that order until Rossi found a way past the Spaniard on lap eight.
By lap ten, the order had started to settle with the top five looking as follows: Rossi, Pedrosa, Stoner, John Hopkins and Alex Barros, who had done remarkably well to take his Ducati Pramac d'Antin ahead of the works Ducati of Capirossi after starting from tenth. The Honda Gresinis of Melandri and Toni Elias were battling away in seventh and eighth whilst Nicky Hayden was up to ninth ahead of the struggling Vermeulen. Barros continued his progress by taking fourth off Hopkins seven laps from the end and started to put Stoner under some searing pressure. Then with three laps to go the Brazilian managed to pass Stoner going into the first corner. Out front, Pedrosa, happy to settle for second, backed off to finish over three seconds behind Rossi, who recorded his second victory of the season and closed the gap to Stoner in the championship to nine points.
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