Italian speedster Valentino Rossi kept his word by winning the Qatar MotoGP in dramatic fashion on Saturday to further hammer home his superiority in motorcycling’s premier class.
Rossi, who had claimed the title with four races to spare, insisted he would be happy with nothing less than a win in Qatar and lived up to his promise, denying fellow Italian Loris Capirossi a third successive MotoGP victory.
”It was a fantastic race and my best race of the year by far. It was a battle between great riders and it was fantastic to win like this,” he told BBC television.
”I would like to say thank you to my team because the bike was very, very fast.”
Capirossi started on pole position but soon slid back and eventually ended the race in 10th position.
Spaniard Sete Gibernau, who for a great part of the race raised visions of a victory, veered off the track briefly to finish fifth eventually.
Rossi, who said he would be racing his Yamaha without the pressure of having to win — having already taken the championship for the fifth consecutive year — clocked 43 minutes and 33,759 seconds, while fellow Italian Marco Melandri, on a Honda, finished in 43:35,429.
American Nicky Hayden, also on a Honda, was a little less than four seconds behind in a time of 43:39,295. — Sapa-AFP