MotoGP 2005 - Round 5

Racing superstar Valentino Rossi added yet more lustre to his crown with a magnificent victory in today’s Italian GP at Mugello. In front of almost 90,000 of his passionate countrymen, the Gauloises Yamaha rider dominated proceedings from the first of 23 laps of the fast and scenic 5.245km circuit outside Florence.

Although Rossi gave up the lead to MoviStar-Honda-mounted Marco Melandri for one lap, and to his greatest rival Max Biaggi (Repsol Honda) for another four, he was in control throughout. With three laps to go he regained the lead, and moved ahead to defeat Biaggi by less than half-a-seconds.

It was his fourth win of the season, and further increased his points lead as he aims towards a historic fifth successive premier-class title.

On the penultimate lap, Loris Capirossi (Marlboro Ducati) finally managed to make his long-lasting attack on Melandri stick and he claimed third, making an all-Italian top four.

“It was a hard race, and an important race,” said Rossi, who stretched his series lead over nearest rival Melandri to a massive 49 points, while last year’s runner-up Sete Gibernau crashed out, dropping from third overall to fourth with his second zero score of the season.

The fifth race of the season also marked a significant step forward for the Proton KR, powered by KTM, as rider Shane Byrne finished 16th, just two seconds short of catching Kenny Roberts Jr. on the factory Suzuki for the final championship point.

This was the first race for the latest version of the V4 motor – and it didn’t skip a beat, as well as recording impressive top speed figures of 328.2 km/h, 11th-fastest of the 21 entries, and faster than the factory Kawasakis and Suzukis. At the same time, the new version of the chassis, tried for the first time at the last round at Le Mans, also solved the handling difficulties that had troubled the former British Superbike champion in earlier races.

“It was a long, hard race, and I just wasn’t quite fast enough to stay with them in the early laps,” said Byrne, pleased to finish after crashing out on the first lap of the previous race. “Then I put my head down, and at the end I managed to pass Rolfo’s Ducati for 16th, but I even thought I might be able to catch Kenny’s Suzuki.

“We still need more acceleration – I have to ride the bike like a big 250. But the top speed is good, and the front-end feeling from the chassis is transformed. It’s definitely coming,” said the English rider.

Team owner Kenny Roberts also marked the event as a step forward. “This weekend was very good,” he said. “Earlier, we had some reliability problems with the new engine, but we seem to have put them behind us, and that’s a lot better. You could say we’re starting our season now.

“It’s hard for us to work on reliability and on development at the same time. Now we need to concentrate on adding some performance, to take another step towards being competitive,” he added.

The next race is the Catalunyan GP, in one week’s time.

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