However, two of Rossi’s main rivals had qualified in front of the fourth-placed Repsol Honda, with Max Biaggi’s Pramac RCV taking its second successive pole, and Ducati’s Loris Capirossi in third. The surprise front row man was 39-year-old Jeremy McWilliams, riding the 500cc two-stroke Proton KR3. Three 500 machines had been on the front row in 2002, and a two-stroke victory had been on the cards, so ‘Jezza’ must have felt encouraged by the bike’s performance in P2.

Sete Gibernau’s Telefónica Honda was fifth on the grid, ahead of Troy Bayliss (Ducati), the leading Yamaha of Carlos Checa, and eighth man Tohru Ukawa (Pramac Honda). Row three was headed by Nobuatsu Aoki, on the second KR3, from Shin’ya Nakano, Alex Barros and Marco Melandri (all Yamaha). Of the rest, Colin Edwards’ Aprilia was thirteenth, after it became a fireball and flipped across a gravel trap during practice. WCM’s Chris Burns had to sit out the race, still suffering a broken collarbone sustained at Donington, but team-mate David de Gea was aboard a Sabre V4 machine.

At the race start, Rossi went straight to the head of the field, leading from Capirossi, Bayliss and Gibernau. Melandri made a good getaway to run fifth, while pole man Biaggi dropped to ninth, behind McWillliams, Ukawa and Aoki. Gibernau made further progress at the penultimate corner, a left-hander at the bottom of a downhill section, going past Bayliss for third. This was to be the scene of most of the significant action in the race. Troy also lost out to Melandri, the Fortuna rider passing him over the finish line.

Even on the second lap, the leaders seemed to be pulling away from the main pack, with Rossi particularly rapid. Another man making the right impression was Olivier Jacque, whose Gauloises Yamaha was up ten places to eighth first time over the line. However, it already looked like another potential Rossi masterclass, with the Italian having built a small margin over the Capirossi-Gibernau-Melandri trio. Behind, Bayliss was now pursued by Ukawa, Jacque, Aoki, Nicky Hayden (from grid fifteen), Biaggi and Checa.

Gibernau’s 2003 form looked set to continue when the Spaniard went inside Capirossi, at the second last corner, but Melandri managed to go inside the pair of them at this exact moment! It was a short lived spell in second, as Sete overtook Marco on the inside of the final turn, an uphill left. But then the Yamaha man repassed on the straight, as this duo began to stretch away from the Ducati pair.

Rossi may have had a big lead at this early stage, but Gibernau finally went past Melandri on the inside for a fast left, and he was then able to pull away from the pack as he began his pursuit of the champion. With six laps gone, Valentino’s lead was around two seconds, but Sete kept plugging away and the margin started coming down. With thirteen laps remaining, the gap was about 0.6s, at which point the Spaniard really put the hammer down.

Before long Gibernau was right on Rossi’s tail, and putting the pressure on. Onto the start-finish straight, the Telefónica machine drew level, taking over the inside line for turn one, and going through. The fact that Sete’s RCV was the right spec for mid-range power, which Valentino had apparently dismissed, was obviously paying off.

However, Rossi was not done yet. The first two continued circultaing as one, with Valentino trying out a number of attacking moves. Gibernau was able to keep the door shut, and hold off the pass, but it seemed ‘the Doctor’ was sizing up the options, particularly into the penultimate left-hander.

On the final lap, Rossi was right up Gibernau’s exhausts. Sure enough, he fired out of the corner leading downhill and was on the inside for the left at the bottom. At the last turn, however, the Italian made a mistake. Opting for a defensive line, he went into the corner tight to the apex, taking himself out wide at the exit. Sete didn’t need a second invitation. Going for the conventional line, he approached the turn from wider, cutting in tighter at the exit and speeding alongside Rossi onto the straight. His greater momentum took him over the line first to nick the win, and Valentino was pretty disappointed.

Third place in the end went to the lead Ducati, and this meant Troy Bayliss. The Australian, a newcomer to the track, had moved past team-mate Capirossi in the early stages, and then gone ahead of Melandri for third. The pack had started to string out, but Max Biaggi had made similar progress. Passing McWilliams, Ukawa and Capirossi in the early laps, he then put a move on Melandri at the downhill left. A fastest lap for the Roman preceded a big tussle with Bayliss, with the pair nearly touching before the Honda man finally passed and went after the first two. Unfortunately, the pace was a bit too hot for Max’s customer bike, and he slid off into the gravel, his bike tumbling into retirement.

After this, Bayliss was largely untroubled, and the next battle to develop was for fourth, between Melandri, Capirossi, Ukawa, Hayden and Nakano. The last three named had already seen off Checa, who had run seventh behind Capirossi but then seemed to fade. Despite using the same softer rear Michelins as his team-mate, Capirossi couldn’t match the sliding Bayliss, and was actually helped into an eventual fourth when Melandri fell. Having his best GP outing so far, Hayden wound up fifth. On the last lap, the American had in fact overtaken Capirossi, but could be forgiven for losing out to the experienced Italian.

Sixth went to Ukawa’s RCV, with Nakano and the first Yamaha M1 close on his heels, after a steady ride from eleventh early on. Checa was eighth, from Jacque - who seemed to have rallied after losing out to McWilliams and Barros - and the fourth straight Yamaha home was that of factory wildcard Norick Abe, tenth. A disappointing, yet somehow inevitable slide saw the Protons of Aoki and McWilliams next in line, ahead of Makoto Tamada and the Bridgestone-shod Honda.

Not making the flag were the ever spectacular Noriyuki Haga, whose Aprilia took a rapid slide into the gravel from fifteenth, and a not fully fit Barros, who also fell without get much further up the order. Kawasaki, fielding Garry McCoy, Andrew Pitt and wildcard Alex Hofmann, did not feature, and the same was true of Suzuki. Kenny Roberts returned to pilot the GSV-R after injury, but team-mate John Hopkins had a very public and smoky exit from the race with a blown engine.

Five points may not be a lot, but Sete Gibernau brought Valentino Rossi’s points lead down to 29. More importantly, though, he also showed that the Italian could be beaten in a straight fight, in equal conditions. Hopefully this bodes well for a fascinating conclusion to the championship, after the summer break.

Standings after nine races: Rossi 187; Gibernau 158; Biaggi 130; Capirossi 97; Bayliss 80; Ukawa 66; Checa 65; Nakano 63; Barros 62; Hayden 57; Jacque 50.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon