Liuzzi inherits win from Melandri

Melandri, who started the race from pole position, rocketed away at the start and built up a 7.5-second lead by lap nine, which was Liuzzi passed Thomas Biagi for second place.

Liuzzi got the hammer down, and ate into Melandri's lead initially, but the Italian MotoGP star had stabilised the gap until his car suddenly slowed on lap 15.

"I was concentrating on not making any mistakes, but my gear changes were becoming more difficult, which didn't make it easy," said Melandri. "Then, all of a sudden, there were no more gears and I was out."

That gifted the lead to Liuzzi, who stroked home ahead of yesterday's winner Gianni Morbidelli.

Thomas Biagi finished third, although Heinz-Harald Frentzen looked poised to grab the place from him in the closing laps, only to make contact and then get rammed into a spin by Johnny Herbert.

Christopher Zoechling finished fourth, ahead of Frentzen and Herbert.

Classified:

Pos  Driver       Team            Time
 1.  Liuzzi       UP Team         40:03.661
 2.  Morbidelli   Palm Beach      +   4.554
 3.  Biagi        Palm Beach      +  14.021
 4.  Zoechling    Durango         +  16.459
 5.  Frentzen     Team Lavaggi    +  18.372
 6.  Herbert      JMB             +  23.400
 7.  Lee          HPR             +  39.058
 8.  Pasini       JMB             +  47.788
 9.  Al Attiyah   Team Barwa      +  63.061
10.  Al Thani     QMMF Team       +  1 lap
11.  Melandri     Team Lavaggi    +  5 laps

Not Classified:

     Alesi       HPR           4
     Al Kuwari   QMMF Team     2
     Al Maktoum  UP Team       1
     Villeneuve  Durango       0
 
Fastest lap: Liuzzi, 2:05.261 on lap 16