Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi has taken victory in today's Spanish MotoGP after a masterful display of consistent riding which saw him reel in, pass and then put a gap on hometown hero Dani Pedrosa.
As expected, Pedrosa got the holeshot from the front row of the grid with Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner, Rossi and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo in tow. It took Pedrosa just a handful of corners to make a break while Rossi had a brief dice with Lorenzo.
Stoner and Pedrosa got away from the Yamaha pairing but as soon as The Doctor was past Lorenzo he set about chasing the leaders, as Stoner was dropped off by the Spaniard.
It took Rossi four laps to catch the Australian and he passed going into the final turn but Stoner got a great drive out onto the start/finish straight and went past Rossi again into turn one.
Rossi put the same move on Stoner a lap later, made it stick and the Italian put an immediate gap on the Ducati and went off in pursuit of Pedrosa, who was the best part of two seconds ahead.
Rossi just clicked off lap after lap and reeled in the Repsol Honda with 11 laps to go, passing the Spaniard a lap later going into turn nine and then went away from Pedrosa finishing more than three seconds in front with Stoner completing the podium.
Lorenzo threw away a solid fourth, losing the front on the last lap and handing the MotoGP Championship lead to his team-mate. Randy De Puniet scored his best finish ever in fourth place with Marco Melandri in fifth and Loris Capirossi in sixth.
Britain's James Toseland finished down in 13th place.
