Rossi beats Lorenzo in thrilling finish

The two riders completely dominated the Barcelona race and fought tooth and nail in the last three laps of the race, with the outcome being set at the very last corner.

Italy's Rossi took the lead back from local hero Lorenzo at the first turn with three laps to go. Exactly one lap later Lorenzo tried to take the lead back and went ahead on the straight, but Rossi managed to outbrake the Spaniard on the outside of the track and keep the position.

Lorenzo, however, made his move stick at the beginning of the last lap. Rossi managed to respond in the overtaking spot in the middle of the lap, but went wide and Lorenzo kept the lead.

But at the entry of the last corner the reigning world champion sneaked through and somehow managed to find the apex, preventing Lorenzo from getting back ahead.

Best of the rest was Ducati's Casey Stoner, who finished more than eight seconds behind the leading pair, but managed to held of the challenge from Honda's Andrea Dovizioso and beat him by half a tenth.

Today's result means that the top three riders now jointly lead the championship at 106 points after six races in the season.

Loris Capirossi took fifth place with his Suzuki, ahead of Dani Pedrosa's works Honda and Colin Edwards's Tech 3 Yamaha.

Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda), Mika Kallio (Pramac Ducati) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati) rounded up the top ten.

Yuki Takahashi crashed his Scot Honda into the barriers during the first lap, while Toni Elias fell from his Gresini Honda on lap 10 of the 25-lap race having quickly fallen back from his fifth-place start.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider             Bike            Time
 1.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    43m11.897s   
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    +   0.095s
 3.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    +   8.884s
 4.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     +   8.936s
 5.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    +  19.831s
 6.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     +  22.182s
 7.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    +  23.547s
 8.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     +  25.265s
 9.  Mika Kallio       Ducati    +  31.797s
10.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati    +  33.593s
11.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    +  36.683s
12.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     +  36.874s
13.  James Toseland    Yamaha    +  39.433s
14.  Marco Melandri    Kawasaki  +  44.788s
15.  Sete Gibernau     Ducati    +  46.754s
16.  Niccolo Canepa    Ducati    +  55.873s
17.  Gabor Talmacsi    Honda     +1m27.640s

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider             Bike       Laps
     Toni Elias        Honda         9
     Yuki Takahashi    Honda         0

FASTEST LAP: Stoner, 1m42.858s on lap 2