 One of most exciting races of the season saw Valentino Rossi winning in front of his home crowd for a fifth time in a row. Gibernau was the man to lead race in first corner, but Valentino Rossi soon took first position which he hold until lap 2, when Gibernau returned to the lead and stayed there for first few laps of the race, under constant pressure of Rossi. Initial leaders were trailed by Honda group of Melandri, Stoner, Pedrosa and Hayden. Loris Capirossi, who qualified second for Italian Grand Prix, had terrible start and ended up in 8th place after lap 1, immediatelly starting to work his way through the field.
In opening laps of the race, leaders were joined by Marco Melandri and Casey Stoner, with Melandri shortly getting in front of Rossi in lap 4. However, pace set by Rossi and Gibernau was to strong for others, and they started making significant gap to their Honda trailers. Casey Stoner had terrible crash from which he escaped uninjured. At the middle of thr race, Capirossi was close to the leaders, and soon he started battle for the win. As we saw many times this season, Gibernau started going backwards to eventually finish race in 5th place.
In second part of the race, Rossi was joined by Capirossi Hondas of Hayden, Melandri and Pedrosa leading epic battle for the victory. In lap 15, Rossi overbraked himself and ended up in 5th place, having to make his way through again. Soon he was recovered from mistake and got behind Capirossi, who was desperatelly trying to win in front of his and Ducati's home crowd. Tree laps from the end of the race started exciting battle for the first place between Capirossi and Rossi, with Hayden in close distance. Rossi made one of his famous overtakings and finished race in first place, in front of excellent Capirossi. Hayden once again finished on podium, in third place.
Dani Pedrosa was 4th, being unable to fight for podium this time, but he was not threatened by anyone for this position. Gibernau was 5th, in front of Melandri in 6th, who had one off-track excursions which ended his podium hopes, which were realistic in few stages of the race. Toni Elias made his way through from 12th on the grid to finish in 7th place, in front of Kenny Roberts Jr, who brought best result of the season to his team. Tamada ended race in 9th, with Hopkins completing top 10 Italian Grand Prix finishers.
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