Rossi beats Stoner to Assen victory

Today's victory sees the Fiat Yamaha rider reducing the points gap to 21 behind his Marlboro Ducati rival.

Stoner had a better start than pole-sitter Chris Vermeulen, with the Ducati reaching the first turn ahead of the Suzuki.

In the other Rizla Suzuki, John Hopkins went into third place from his fifth spot on the grid, and quickly overtook his teammate for second.

Rossi's start was rather ordinary, the Italian improving by one position to tenth place.

The best start was Nicky Hayden's, who was 13th on the grid. The reigning champion made an amazing move on the outside to go into fifth place at the first corner. In the space of three laps, the Repsol Honda rider was in third place.

That's when Rossi started to make up ground on the riders ahead of him. On lap 4 he overtook Marlboro Ducati's Loris Capirossi and Yamaha teammate Colin Edwards; on lap 5 he passed Vermeulen for fifth; and on lap 7 and 8 he overtook the Hondas of Dani Pedrosa and Hayden for third place.

In the space of three laps - in which he set a string of consecutive fastest laps - he reached and passed Hopkins, who previously had a 2.6-second advantage over him.

On the same lap 12, Randy de Puniet tried to overtake Chris Vermeulen for seventh position, but the Australian resisted on the outside and the two made contact.

The Frenchman slipped off his Kawasaki and both ended up in the gravel trap, but Vermeulen managed to carry on in 16th position while de Puniet retired on the spot.

Within two laps Rossi caught up to Stoner and began making several attempts to pass him. After eight laps behind the championship leader, the seven-time world champion managed to take the lead at the entry of the last chicane.

In the four remaining laps Rossi opened up a gap that secured his victory, ultimately finishing almost two seconds ahead of Stoner.

Third place went to Hayden, who took his first podium of the season. His teammate Pedrosa took fourth place, ahead of Hopkins in fifth and Edwards in sixth.

Alex Barros on the d'Antin Ducati finished in seventh, with teammate Alex Hofmann in eighth, Kawasaki's Anthony West in ninth and Gresini Honda's Marco Melandri rounding up the top ten.

Capirossi had another lacklustre race, which ended when he came in the pits and retired towards the end.

Classified:

Pos  Rider              Make       Time
 1.  Valentino Rossi    Yamaha     42:37.149
 2.  Casey Stoner       Ducati     +   1.909
 3.  Nicky Hayden       Honda      +   6.077
 4.  Daniel Pedrosa     Honda      +  10.465
 5.  John Hopkins       Suzuki     +  13.138
 6.  Colin Edwards      Yamaha     +  15.139
 7.  Alex Barros        Ducati     +  36.075
 8.  Alex Hofmann       Ducati     +  41.768
 9.  Anthony West       Kawasaki   +  43.605
10.  Marco Melandri     Honda      +  43.796
11.  Carlos Checa       Honda      +  43.826
12.  Shinya Nakano      Honda      +  47.896
13.  Makoto Tamada      Yamaha     +  54.068
14.  Sylvain Guintoli   Yamaha     +  57.718
15.  Kurtis Roberts     KR         +1:28.637
16.  Chris Vermeulen    Suzuki     +1:34.808

Not classified:

     Rider              Make      Laps
     Loris Capirossi    Ducati     17
     Randy de Puniet    Kawasaki   11

Fastest lap: Rossi, 1:37.433 on lap 13