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Rossi Second in Catalunya MotoGP
Category: Racing News
Date: 12 Jun 2007
Time: 12:14:46 -0400Comments
With a dramatic 1-2 finish in Spain’s Catalunya Grand Prix on Sunday, June 10, it seems more and more like Casey Stoner and Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi are the two premier forces in the 2007 MotoGP World Championship. Rossi stormed to his fourth pole of the season aboard his YZR-M1, and in the race battled heroically to finish a close second. He has now earned an amazing 96 premierclass podium finishes – more than any other rider in history – and trails Stoner by just 14 points in the championship with 11 rounds remaining. Rossi’s teammate Colin Edwards finished 10th after qualifying sixth. Despite his pole position, Rossi got a mediocre start and was fourth behind Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and John Hopkins at the end of lap one. As always though, Rossi immediately went to work getting past Hopkins, and then stalked and passed Pedrosa before the halfway point. The real drama began as he next attacked Stoner for the lead and the pair engaged in a fantastic late-race battle with numerous lead changes. On the next to last lap Stoner made a pass stick and Rossi – despite every masterful effort – missed victory by a tantalizing 0.069 sec. "What a race! Even if I'm disappointed not to win, it's a great emotion to be part of a race like that and fantastic fun,” Rossi remarked afterwards. “Yamaha and Michelin are working very hard and the fact that we could fight like this today to the very end showed this. I've won a lot of times here in Montmelo and I wanted to win again, but like I said, I don't think I could have done any more today!”