San Marino GP: Exclusive Race Report

Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) led from start to finish at the Misano track on Sunday to win the San Marino MotoGP Grand Prix.

It was a back-to-back win for the Spaniard who won in the US last weekend, and his fourth this season, brining him closer to championship leader Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha) who finished second. Reigning world champion Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) was third.

Lorenzo continues to lead the championship on 271 points, but with a reduced margin. Pedrosa is second on 208, with Dovizioso third on 139. Rossi and Stoner are tied in fourth place on 130 points.

Pedrosa got away cleanly from pole position and got the hole shot ahead of Casey Stoner (Marlboro Ducati), Lorenzo, Rossi, Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha), Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda).

Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) was eighth into the second corner just ahead of Nicky Hayden (Marlboro Ducati) but the two made contact and both went down, Hayden's third successive crash in the same corner at Misano.

"This place has not been kind to me," said Hayden later. "I got ready to open the gas and Loris didn't go and I had nowhere to go."

Before the first lap was completed, Lorenzo got past Stoner into second. The Australian fought back on the second lap but could not get close enough. Further back, Simoncelli got past Edwards into fifth.

Pedrosa was flying out in front and quickly opened up a one-second gap over Lorenzo and setting a fastest lap of 1'34.858.

By lap 4, Pedrosa had 1.8 sec in hand over Lorenzo, with Stoner still in touch 0.5 sec behind and Rossi 0.7 sec further back.

On lap 5, Pedrosa set a new fastest lap of 1'34.460. Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) dropped from eighth to ninth while Ben Spies (Monster Yamaha) got past Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda) into seventh.

Stoner continued to drop away from Lorenzo and back towards Rossi who was 0.7 sec behind, but the reigning world champion closed down that gap in just one lap to join with the Australian in a battle for third place. Rossi got past but had to run deep into a left-hander, allowing Stoner to take the place back again.

Rossi regrouped for another attack, but Dovizioso was closing up behind him ready to take advantage of any errors by either rider.

At Turn 14 Rossi pounced again and got ahead once more, but this time Stoner was unable to choose a different line and Rossi held onto the position. Further back, Spies got past team mate Edwards into sixth.

Within half a lap, Dovizioso was now on the tail of Stoner and looking for a way past and after a few corners he was successfully through into fourth.

At the halfway mark, Pedrosa had a 4.4 sec lead over Lorenzo who was 2.1 sec ahead of Rossi, with Dovizioso and Stoner at +7.1 and +7.5 sec respectively. Behind them there was a five-way dice for eighth position between De Puniet, Melandri, Héctor Barberá (Aspar Ducati), Aleix Espargaró (Pramac Ducati) and Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki).

Bautista got past Espargaro into 11th and then picked off the next three riders to go eighth on lap 18.

Meanwhile Dovizioso had put four seconds between himself and Stoner as he got ever closer to the rear wheel of third-placed Rossi who was three seconds behind team mate Lorenzo.

With six laps to go, Rossi posted his personal fastest lap of the race - 1'34.694 - and followed that up with a 1'34.547 as he closed the gap from himself to second-placed Lorenzo to 2.6 sec with three laps to go.

But there were not enough laps left for any further changes of position and Pedrosa, a former 125cc and 250cc world champion, crossed the line a clear winner from Lorenzo who chalked up his third consecutive second place at Misano.

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