Valentino Rossi fights of Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner at Estoril. Photo / Reuters
ESOTRIL - Italian Valentino Rossi won the Portuguese grand prix for Yamaha today to keep championship leader Casey Stoner waiting for the MotoGP title.
The Australian needed to score 15 points more than Rossi to secure the crown with four races in hand but the Ducati rider had
to settle for third place behind the Italian and Spain's Dani Pedrosa.
Stoner now has 287 points, 76 more than Rossi.
"It was an amazing race. It was a great battle with Dani (Pedrosa) especially, and with Casey (Stoner). Today everything worked well", said Rossi, who retired from the previous race in Italy.
"Once again we've shown that when the tyres are working well we can fight at the top. It was fantastic fun to ride like this again, at the maximum and with a lot of good passing."
Rossi, using a new specification Yamaha engine, overtook Honda's Pedrosa on the final lap to win in 45 minutes 49.911 seconds at the slowest circuit on the calendar.
Pedrosa clocked 45min 50.086sec with Ducati rider Stoner third on 45min 51.388sec.
Outgoing world champion Nicky Hayden, of the United States, who started on pole position, was fourth on a Honda in 46min 02.862sec.
It was Rossi's fourth win of the season and the first since the Dutch grand prix at the end of June. It was also his eighth successive podium finish at Estoril.
Stoner's fourth successive podium finish, and 11th top three result in 14 races, came despite a clutch problem that slowed his challenge.
"I'm happy with the result but we did have higher expectations going into this race," Stoner, 21, said.
"We thought we had a pretty good setup but unfortunately I started having a problem with the clutch about five laps into the race.
"There was no engine braking so I couldn't try and brake as late as the other guys without running wide into the turns."
- REUTERS
