Rossi wins at Assen

Valentino Rossi has won the Dutch round of the MotoGP championship despite a valiant effort from Honda rider Marco Melandri.

Melandri lead from the begining of the race while Rossi was back in fifth but by half way through the current world champion had sythed through the field and taken the lead away from Melandri.

But Melandri wouldn’t let go of Rossi and stayed with him for the rest of the race. Towards the end Melandri was even gaining ground and got to within 0.45 seconds until Rossi upped the pace and set a new lap record on the final lap leaving Melandri to settle for second place in the race and second place in the championship.

Rossi is the only Yamaha rider ever to score five consecutive wins and the only Yamaha rider to get 10 consecutive podiums.

Rossi’s team-mate Colin Edwards followed the Italian through the pack and finisjed in third despite not quite being able to keep up the pace of the front two.

Felow American Nicky Hayden took fourth place ahead of Sete Gibernau Max BIaggi and Alex Barros with the Kawasaki of Shinya Nakano and the Ducatis of Carlos Checa and Loris Capirossi finsihing the top ten.

Official finishing posititons:

Valentino Rossi

Marco Melandri , 1.583

Colin Edwards , 7.643

Nicky Hayden , 10.128

Sete Gibernau , 14.795

Max Biaggi , 21.575

Alex Barros , 22.725

Shinya Nakano , 26.477

Carlos Checa , 30.221

Loris Capirossi , 30.465

Troy Bayliss , 43.802

Ruben Xaus , 49.864

John Hopkins , 50.830

Makoto Tamada , 53.370

David Checa , 54.965

Kenny Roberts , 1:06.939

Shane Byrne , 1:06.999

Roberto Rolfo , 1:29.048

James Ellison , 1:43.768

Franco Battaini , 1 Lap

DNF

Alex Hofmann