Race Results
Loris Capirossi took a dominant victory on his Ducati in the Czech Republic today at the Brno round of the MotoGP championship.

Capirossi lead from the first corner to finish with a 4.902 second advantage, while Rossi had to fend off the only real excitement in the race, a persistent challenge from rookie Dani Pedrosa (Honda) four laps from the end before comfortably sealing the runner-up spot in the race.

Rossi picked up 20 vital points for his second place in a race which saw series leader Nicky Hayden (Honda) stumble to ninth - a result which reduces the gap between the pair to 38 points with five rounds remaining.

It was an even tougher afternoon for Colin Edwards, who started out in equally impressive fashion to his team-mate but faded in the second half of the race to finish in tenth.  The Texan started from eighth on the grid and was keen to get in touch with the leading riders as soon as possible, making up three places on the opening three laps.  However, his efforts took their toll on the rear Michelin tire of his YZR-M1 machine and, without the perfect set-up to rely on in the latter stages of the race, he was forced to drop back and settle for another top-ten finish.

Valentino Rossi (2nd; + 4.902):  "It was a good race today and I am very happy with the weekend. Obviously starting from pole position you hope that you can win but today Loris had a completely different pace to the rest of us and I couldn't believe the gap he made!  We weren't perfect today and we still had a few problems, but anyway I was able to do a good race and fight hard to the end.  I had a great battle with Pedrosa with many good overtakes, which was great fun, especially since I finally managed to finish in front of him!"

"Even though I didn't win today this is a very important result for the championship; we are now third and we've gained on Pedrosa and Hayden.  After this weekend the situation is much clearer for us with the bike and the tires and now we have two days of testing, during which we have some new things to try in order to help us be even more competitive for the final five races.  This weekend my M1 worked well from Friday morning, which is very encouraging after the problems we've had during practice this season.  Everyone at Yamaha has worked so hard to come back to this level so I want to thank my team and all the engineers.  Now there are five more races and five riders who can still fight for the championship, so I think it's going to be a very exciting end to the season!"