In a weekend of high drama at Mugello in Italy, Italian world champion Valentino Rossi broke a leg in practice and underwent surgery, while Spaniard Dani Pedrosa led from start to finish to finally take a maiden win in the 2010 FIM MotoGP world championship.  He had only converted three of his previous 14 premier class pole positions into wins. 

He led comfortably throughout and finished four seconds clear of the field.  Rossi’s team-mate and championship leader Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) was second and extended his points advantage.  Pedrosa’s Honda team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was third and gave the Italian home crowd something to cheer about after Rossi’s shock departure.  Australian Casey Stoner took fourth ahead of Italian Marco Melandri (Honda) and Randy de Puniet of France.

While Pedrosa set a new lap record on lap five on his way to the chequered flag, Dovizioso and American World Superbike Champion Ben Spies (Yamaha) fought for third place behind Lorenzo after pushing past Stoner’s Ducati.  By half distance, Pedrosa had stretched his lead over Lorenzo and Dovizioso to more than seven seconds, with a big gap to the battle for fourth between Melandri, De Puniet, Stoner and Spies.

An exciting final lap saw Stoner take fourth ahead of Melandri and de Puniet, with Lorenzo ekeing out a bit of a gap over Dovizioso.

Spies was seventh in his rookie season with another rookie, Aleix Espargaro, eighth. Marco Simoncelli (Honda) and Loris Capirossi (Suzuki) filled out the top 10.

Lorenzo leads the championship with 90 points, Pedrosa moves up to second with 65 and the absent Rossi drops back to third on 61.  Dovizioso is fourth with 58.