Mugello is an amazing place. The fastest straight in the world, I believe, with a braking zone that drops the riders from around two hundred miles per hour down to about fifty for a slightly downhill hairpin. It's got everything - fast, flowing bends, tight nadgery chicanes and some nice gentle elevation changes. Oh, and it's got an atmosphere that any other circuit manager in the world would sell his first born for. Yes, it's a pain in the neck to get to, but that means that the fans come in prepared for, and expecting, a full weekends entertainment...

Friday saw some pretty unusual weather, with torrential rain causing chaos in practice and robbing teams of desperately needed setup and familiarisation time. Especially for the newer riders like Britain's James Toseland, who has never ridden in anger around this challenging circuit.

Since he came into the premier league Valentino Rossi has only ever once failed to win here. In 2000, his debut year, when he came second behind eventual championship winner Kenny Roberts Jnr. That's a pretty impressive, um, track record (sorry) and one which he'll obviously be keen to continue. But that long straight will work for the still blisteringly fast Ducati while the massive braking will work well for Pedrosa whose slight weight makes it relatively easy to brake later and harder. Loris Capirossi found some form in practice, hustling the so far disappointing Suzuki around the track seemingly glued to the back of his pal Rossi's Yamaha. So he'll be a threat, too. Someone who can never be discounted, though, is the battered but apparently impervious to pain Jorge Lorenzo. He didn't go well in practice but as we all know that doesn't count for much.

Rossi, by the way, has a tradition of one-off helmet designs for Mugello, and this year was his best yet. Possibly the best helmet design ever in fact. Rather than describe it, or try to anyway, just have a look.

Qualifying was also disrupted by rain. Which made no difference whatsoever to Valentino Rossi, who simply blasted onto pole position and stayed there, despite the efforts of Dani Pedrosa, who slipped through to second ahead of Loris Capirossi, taking Suzuki's best qualifying position of the season. Casey Stoner's booming Ducati headed up the second row, under a hundredth of a second ahead of Colin Edwards. Then there was, by the standards of this grid anyway, a yawning quarter of a second gap to sixth placed Nicky Hayden who is having a pretty torrid time of things right now. Again. Row three was headed by Jorge Lorenzo, a tenth of a second ahead of Toseland whose performance is really rather impressive considering his lack of track experience, with Shinya Nakano and Alex de Angelis rounding out the top ten. So the scene was set for what looked as though it could be a rather exciting race.

Race day started off dry and pleasant, and Alex de Angelis obviously liked the conditions as he fired the Honda round in a blistering time which even Rossi couldn't equal. Impressive stuff, but it's only a warmup. Great psychologically but there's no points on offer. Especially conditions change between sessions. And oh boy did they change. From being dry and pleasantly warm, the track temperature soared to forty six degrees. And that makes a world of difference to tyres, both in terms of grip and longevity, as well as completely negating any real value to the setup data obtained in the morning. Meaning, basically, that with the wet sessions earlier on the teams were going into the actual race with relatively little real hard data to use for tyre choices. Always fun...

So. Lights out and no surprise to see Pedrosa get off the line ahead of everyone else, the lightweight Spaniard capitalising on his strong qualifying position and making another of his trademark lightning starts. Stoner, too, made a strong start while Rossi languished in fifth behind Hayden and Capirossi, both of whom made good starts. Toseland and Edwards also came off the line well, the Englishman in particular making full use of his Superbike experience though he got mugged fairly early on, finishing the lap back where he started in eleventh. Rossi just took a couple of corners to get his act together before demolishing the bikes ahead of him and getting back up to third by the end of the lap.

Stoner clearly wanted this win really badly as he made a brave overtaking move on Pedrosa at the end of the straight early in the second lap. Interestingly, the pass was on the brakes rather than simply wafting past on that huge wave of power as it would have been last year. And it wasn't an easy pass either, Pedrosa being reluctant to yield the lead to his arch rival. Behind the two leaders, Rossi had closed right up but there was an eighteen wheel train going on as first through to ninth were essentially joined together. No sign of anyone pulling clear at this early stage, again unlike last year. Rossi was on the move, though, and soon despatched Pedrosa in classic style, taking the lead from Stoner just a lap later. And then we were treated to a traditional Rossi show as the maestro simply got his head down and turned in spotless lap after spotless lap. The local hero just didn't put a wheel wrong, but still didn't just clear off and make it boring either. Stoner and Pedrosa carried on scrapping, both pushing hard and neither wiling to cede that vital twenty points for second place. Drama further back as Randy de Puniet had one of his regular excursions into the gravel, this time taking the unfortunate Marco Melandri out with him. And John Hopkins had a grim experience as the quickshifter on his Kawasaki chose to give up the ghost as the American was trying to change down at the end of the straight. Engine braking is a big deal here, and without that assistance there was no way Hopper was going to make it around the corner. Fortunately he emerged irritated but unhurt from the inevitable high speed getoff.

Just behind the leaders the mother and father of scraps was going on as de Angelis carved his way up through the field until he reached Capirossi. At which point a battle for position was joined between Capirossi, de Angelis, Dovizioso, Edwards, Toseland and Hayden. A battle, I have to say, which continued unabated until the end of the race. Notably absent from that crowd was Jorge Lorenzo, who crashed out when he ran out of track and clipped the grass while still leant hard over. It was refreshing to hear the indomitable young Spaniard admit without hesitation that the mistake was his. He'll be back and he'll be on the podium.

Toseland seems to be a quick learner as he made some extremely brave but classic for this circuit overtaking moves. Nobody will be able to complain about it as everything was totally clean and nobody got duffed up, but the young Brit has certainly got the bit between his teeth and seems to have really got the hang of MotoGP. Indeed, he climbed through the field to get as high as fifth for a while, the only person able to pass him being Colin Edwards on the same bike. Scrapping for position slightly further back no doubt delayed Capirossi and Dovizioso who were joined by Shinya Nakano towards the end. In fact until the last four or five laps the field, apart from Rossi, was still quite bunched up and people were falling over each other a little. But all good things come to an end, and with a few laps to go the riders clearly settled for their current positions, working on the basis that some points were better than none.

And so we saw another brilliant ride from Rossi to take his seventh consecutive win at Mugello and his third consecutive win this season. Stoner came in a steady second despite some large and lurid slides toward the end, while Pedrosa rode to a comfortable third. Alex de Angelis rode an absolute stormer of a race, inch perfect throughout, and took a well deserved fourth ahead of the Tech3 Yamaha pair of Edwards and Toseland. Capirossi prevailed over Dovizioso and Nakano, but only just, while Vermeulen brought the second Suzuki home a distant tenth.

Next week we're in Catalunya, a circuit which again has been fairly kind to Rossi throughout his career. To the extent that he's never been off the podium there. Stoner won there last year, though, and can't be discounted. Neither can Pedrosa, of course in what is almost a home round for him...

SB

Italian MotoGP Results

1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
3. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
4. Alex de Angelis (Honda)
5. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
6. James Toseland (Yamaha)
7. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
8. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)
9. Shinya Nakano (Honda)
10. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)

MotoGP standings (after six rounds)

1. Valentino Rossi 122
2. Dani Pedrosa 110
3. Jorge Lorenzo 94
4. Casey Stoner 76
5. Colin Edwards 58
6. Loris Capirossi 51
7. Andrea Dovizioso 44
8. James Toseland 43
9. Nicky Hayden 40
10. Shinya Nakano 35