MotoGP 2016: Stunning Pedrosa denies Rossi home victory at Misano

Dani Pedrosa of Repsol Honda snatches victory from home hero Valentino Rossi at Misano. Pole-man Jorge Lorenzo finishes third.

Dani Pedrosa pipped local hero Valentino Rossi to take victory at the San Marino circuit in Misano today. Starting from eight on the grid, the Repsol Honda rider put a scintillating show to take his first win in the 2016 season. Rossi finished second in his home race while pole-sitter Jorge Lorenzo came third. Today’s race result also means that we now have eight different winners in a row in 2016 season of MotoGP!

In the opening laps, no one could have guessed of Pedrosa emerging as such a threat. While Lorenzo took a holeshot at the start, it was Rossi who quickly made his intentions clear by taking over the lead from his teammate in the second lap. The Yamahas looked stronger than the rest in terms of outright pace as they started to build a significant gap from the riders behind. Behind the Yamaha duo was the second group that comprised Maverick Vinales, Marc Marquez, Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa. Marquez quickly overtook Vinales, although it took Pedrosa some time and efforts to finally break away from the Suzuki and Ducati riders.

After having dismissed Vinales and Dovizioso, Pedrosa really came on to his own - he was now putting the fastest laps of the race. This meant he was soon on Marquez's tail. Pedrosa passed him without a hitch since Marquez did not have any answer to his teammate’s blistering pace. Pedrosa continued his charge after that and quickly took over second place from Lorenzo. Next up on his hunting list was race-leader Rossi - who had been wishing to take a glorified win in front of his home crowd. With seven laps to go, though, Pedrosa crashed the Italian's party at his homeground as he aggressively took the lead from him in a hard but clean block pass. For the remainder of the laps, Pedrosa would remain unfazed and untouched regardless of how hard Rossi would try. Pedrosa won the race with a margin of 2.8 seconds over Rossi.

Marquez had to settle for fourth position in the race while last race’s winner Vinales took fifth spot. Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso and Michele Pirro finished sixth and seventh, respectively. Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Pol Espargaro, LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow and Gresini Aprilia’s Alvaro Bautista completed the top 10 for the day.

Marquez now leads the championship by 43 points ahead of Rossi.

2016 MotoGP Italian Grand Prix (11/09/2016)
Misano World Circuit – 4.232km, 16 turns