Valentino Rossi wore the image of a donkey on his helmet, but he returned to thoroughbred status by defeating his title rival, Jorge Lorenzo, in the San Marino Grand Prix yesterday.
Rossi’s lead is now 30 points, but an enthralling duel between the sparring Fiat Yamaha riders looks set to go down to the wire. For Lorenzo, the disappointment of finishing second to the peerless Italian was tempered by the fact that it could have been a lot worse. A calamitous first corner move by Alex De Angelis took out the American duo of Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden, but Lorenzo escaped unscathed despite being touched and went on to finish second.
In front of a huge home crowd at Misano, Rossi won his sixth race of the season and was greeted on his return to parc ferm? by a crew clad in elongated donkey ears. Rossi, himself, was wearing the donkey helmet as an admission of guilt with regard to his crash in Indianapolis last week. “In Italy, if you make a stupid mistake we say you are a donkey,” he said. “It was not easy, but it was a perfect weekend.”
The race ended up being comfortable, but was a struggle in the opening third. Rossi started on pole, but Dani Pedrosa celebrated signing a new contract with Repsol Honda by taking the early lead. Lorenzo did get past Rossi, but it was a brief respite and Rossi managed to get to the front and pull away from Lorenzo while he battled with Pedrosa. The winning margin was a huge 2.4sec with Pedrosa third and James Toseland, the Briton, tenth.
The real donkey was De Angelis and Edwards was suitably unimpressed. “We’re in Italy and you have to deal with dumb Italians,” he griped. “He just decided to turn his brain off.” Hayden was equally disgruntled and motioned to punch De Angelis in the gravel trap before being shepherded away. With Casey Stoner, of Ducati, missing because of health problems, the title race is now a two-man tussle. Most people will be putting their money on the donkey.