 Marco Melandri today scored second victory of the season, after race that seemed to be comeback of Valentino Rossi. After first few laps with John Hopkins as initial leader, Valentino Rossi established lead and started pooling away from the rest of the field, increasing lead from lap to lap, but once again he runned out of luck - his machine cracked with 8 laps remaining in the race.
After Rossi retied from the race, Dani Pedrosa was in first position, but soon he was catched by charging Melandri, who got in the lead and newer looked back. Pedrosa was lacking the grip due to bad tyre choice, and he was catched and overtaken by Capirossi in last lap, finishing race in 3rd position. Casey Stoner and championship leader, Hayden, had long and hard battle, but eventually young Australian rider edged American to finish in 4th. Hayden picked valuable championship points by finishing in 5th, despite bad physical condition.
Colin Edwards finished race in 6th, around 5 seconds of Makoto Tamada, who seems to be comming into the form. Sete Gibernau finished in 8th, in front of Elias who had rocket start and managed to recover from poor qualifying position. Chris Vermeulen completed top 10 finishers.
What we saw today was continuing strike of bad luck for Valentino Rossi, who had to retire from race when he had victory in the bag. Rossi is now 43 points behind Hayden in championship, but Hayden's led is now reduced to just 4 points from Melandri and Capirossi, both having same number of points. There is still lot of races remaining in the championship, and we well see if Rossi will be able to strike back at his home Grand Prix in two week's time.
Complete race results - Le Mans, France
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