Of course, after the round six Catalan race, a lot of the talk had surely been about the dramatic final lap battle between team-mates Rossi and Lorenzo. It seems that Valentino had read an article in which Jorge had been quoted as planning to take his home race with a final corner passing move. Rossi had turned the tables after other attempted passes on the lap had not come off, and apparently the Italian had been able to dive inside with more momentum by taking the corner in second rather than third gear.

In the championship race, Stoner on the Marlboro Ducati had been more consistent, whilst the Fiat Yamaha pair had looked quicker than the rest overall, but had each made one mistake. All three had form at the historic Assen circuit, scene of the Dutch TT, which pre-dates even the world championship series. But in fact the full MotoGP field for 2009 included eleven riders with previous GP victories here, plus three men to have had more than one win here in Superbike racing.

For qualifying, the seven fastest riders were former Assen winners, with only Andrea Dovizioso of those on the first three rows of the grid not able to claim this. Yamaha looked strong again, with both the blue and white Fiat sponsored bikes on the front row. Rossi took pole position, with Lorenzo third. As an unwell Stoner managed ‘only’ fourth, Lorenzo is now the only man to start from the front row every time this year. Perhaps surprisingly, given the ongoing after effects of his fractured thigh from Mugello, Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa split the Yamahas in second.

The other pair of Yamaha men, Tech 3 team riders Colin Edwards and James Toseland, were also towards the front. Both equalled their best for the season, with Colin fifth and James ninth. The English rider had had some recent help from Yamaha boss Nakajima, getting to use the same base settings as Rossi with the 2009 M1. Essentially this meant getting the weight bias more to the rear, including by rider seating position, to improve grip.

Testing work after Catalunya had helped the Rizla Suzuki team access more horsepower from the engine of the GSV-R800, and this helped Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen into sixth and seventh places. Between Chris and James was Dovizioso on the second Repsol Honda, the team that had now gone a year without winning a race. Honda customers took the next two places, Randy de Puniet (for LCR) tenth, then Alex de Angelis (for Gresini).

Twelfth man Mika Kallio, with the Pramac Ducati, headed Ducati works rider Nicky Hayden, then came Hayate Kawasaki rider Marco Melandri. Toní Elías (San Carlo Gresini Honda), Sete Gibernau (Grupo Francisco Hernando Ducati), Niccolò Canepa (Pramac Racing Ducati), Yuki Takahashi and Gábor Talmácsi (both Scot Racing Honda) completed the grid.

Saturday was race day, and apparently the morning saw Lorenzo virtually copy Rossi’s Yamaha settings, which especially helped him get the final corner of the circuit right. But at the start Lorenzo dropped places, and it was Pedrosa that led Rossi, Stoner, Vermeulen and Edwards. Lorenzo then headed Dovizioso, Hayden, de Puniet, Melandri and Capirossi. Stoner and Rossi both passed Pedrosa on the first lap, with Lorenzo also making his way through past Edwards.

The first corner on the circuit is the right-handed Haarbocht, which leads onto a further long looping right. The second lap began with Lorenzo passing Vermeulen on the inside at Haarbocht and then Rossi passing Stoner on the inside through the end part of the long right-hander. This meant that Rossi led Stoner, Pedrosa and fastest lap man Lorenzo, with Vermeulen tagging on behind. Edwards and Dovizioso were already starting to lose touch. Then came Hayden, followed by the battling de Puniet and Melandri.

Vermeulen was left behind as the first four broke away, with Rossi starting to open a small margin at the front. Lorenzo took third place away from Pedrosa, but soon after this the Honda man suffered a lowside crash just after rounding Haarbocht. With Rossi starting to get further away, Lorenzo was soon past Stoner for second - but still Valentino, with a new lap record, extended his lead. Jorge followed suit and began to distance himself from Casey, with the action further back catching the eye.

The tussle between de Puniet and Melandri had seen the French rider have to take to a run-off road, which lost him some places, while the Italian found himself even further back. Meanwhile, fifth man Vermeulen had been joined by Edwards and Dovizioso, with the Italian getting past both riders to inherit fourth at the demise of his team-mate. Andrea moved clear of the Suzuki-Yamaha race and started to close on Stoner - but he never got there as he crashed out in the same place as Pedrosa, leaving Honda with no works riders in the race.

Edwards overtook Vermeulen at the horseshoe left de Strubben, soon taking clear hold of fourth place, but the race was on for sixth. Hayden held this position, with Toseland getting by Capirossi for P7. They were joined by de Angelis, de Puniet and Kallio, with the Pramac rider soon to move past both the Honda satellite team men. Toseland took over the lead of the group from Hayden, with meanwhile Elías homing in on them from behind. Both he and Kallio were using softer compound rear Bridgestone tyres.

Capirossi got it wrong and was out onto the run-off road as Kallio was shaping to attack, with the Suzuki almost clipping de Angelis, now behind de Puniet, as he came back onto the track at the back of the group. Mika’s progress also took him past Hayden for seventh, and at half race distance he was battling with Toseland for sixth. His first attempt to pass was countered by the English rider, but he found his way through on the right going into the final right-left-right Geert Timmer Bocht chicane, also known as GT.

Half-distance had seen Rossi with his lead over Lorenzo having crept up in steps from 1.4s to around two seconds. From there it grew more rapidly, as the Spaniard realised he was going to have to settle for second. Stoner was further back in third, with then Edwards and Vermeulen also well spaced apart. These five continued in the same order to the finish, but again with the group behind that continuing to provide plenty of action.

The shuffling had meant that Kallio led Toseland, de Puniet, Hayden, Capirossi and Elías, with de Angelis now unable to keep up. Gibernau was moving through the backmarkers to take up position behind thirteenth man Melandri. Toseland re-established his leadership of the group, and in combative mode was de Puniet, who attacked Kallio but only succeeded in letting Hayden past. Elías overtook Capirossi, and then another attack from Randy took him wide and let Toní past on the inside, soon followed by Loris.

From third in the group, Hayden dropped to the rear of the pack battling for sixth when he got into a rear slide on the brakes and was another who therefore took a trip up a slip road. Now in front of Nicky, de Puniet passed Capirossi, and in front Kallio powered past Toseland to once again head the group. The final lap saw the most drama for this lot, especially in the last few corners. Kallio was sixth but managed to crash as he tried to guard against being overtaken, and after a mistake from Toseland this meant that Capirossi and Elías led approaching the chicane.

Trying to outbrake one another for the GT chicane, Capirossi and Elías both ran off the road on the left, coming back on again fairly rapidly. But that incident gifted sixth place back to Toseland, followed over the finish line by de Puniet. Elías came on track again quickly enough to stay in front of Hayden, with Capirossi back into tenth. The remaining finishers were de Angelis, Melandri, Gibernau, Canepa, Takahashi and Talmácsi, with three men crashed out: Kallio, Dovizioso and Pedrosa.

The race win at Assen was significant in more ways than one for Valentino Rossi. The major achievement here was his 100th win in Grand Prix racing. He had taken 12 in the 125cc class, 14 in the 250s, 13 in the 500cc MotoGP era, 45 in the 990cc era, and now 16 in the 800s. With this landmark in mind, and only Giacomo Agostini has over 100 wins, Rossi unrolled a huge banner to celebrate, which was made up of photos connected to each of his previous victories. Secondly, it was thirty years ago in the summer of 1979 that Valentino’s father Graziano had taken his three 250cc GP wins - one of them was at Assen in the fourth week in June.

The first three contenders in the world championship finished one-two-three, but that meant that they were now separated in the points - in the order that they held at the flag. The fate here of Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso meant that they now fell further adrift, and were in fact under threat from Colin Edwards. The Texan equalled his best finish of the season to date with fourth here, and it must not be forgotten than he was three times successful in WSB at Assen. In fact, he also has two podium appearances at Assen in MotoGP, and it was at this venue that he came closest to a GP win - until he got to the last corner in the 2006 race. With Randy de Puniet seventh, and their first rider home, this was the worst result for Honda for two years. Vermeulen, Toseland, Elías and Hayden all had their best result of the season to date.

Standings after seven races: Rossi 131; Lorenzo 126; Stoner 122; Dovizioso 69; Pedrosa and Edwards 67; Capirossi 55; Melandri 54; Vermeulen 53; de Puniet 51.
Yamaha 165; Ducati 122; Honda 98; Suzuki 71; Kawasaki 54.

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