Motorcycling: Rossi keeps Stoner waiting for world title

Valentino Rossi proved yesterday when he won a thrilling three-way battle in the Portuguese MotoGP that when Michelin give him grip and Yamaha supply competitive power, the Doctor can still outwit the world's best riders.

The Italian revelled in his win. "When you don't win for a long time it's like when you don't have sex for a long time," he said. "The men will understand this – it's the same thing."

Rossi, 28, ended a run of four defeats when he passed the Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa on the penultimate circuit of a 28-lap contest on the Estoril track to claim his fourth victory of the year.

Casey Stoner, the 21-year-old Australian who has dominated MotoGP on the Bridgestone-shod Marlboro Ducati this year, was forced to wait for the title. A faulty clutch slowed his 800cc Italian bike into third place, 1.5 seconds behind Rossi.

"Michelin today had something more than Bridgestone," Rossi said. He dedicated his victory to the former world rally champion Colin McRae, who died in a helicopter crash on Saturday. "He was one of my heroes when I was very young," he said.

This was a race that must have had Carmelo Ezpeleta, MotoGP's equivalent of Formula One's Bernie Ecclestone, reaching for the champagne rather than the tranquillisers after a string of runaway wins by Stoner had aroused accusations that the sport was turning into a boring procession.

Stoner gunned off the line first, but his lead lasted for only six laps before Pedrosa forced inside and pushed the red Ducati wide. Rossi moved into second three laps later as Stoner struggled on a bike that was missing gears and finding neutral.

"Unfortunately I had a problem with my clutch," he said. "It just kept coming in and going free, so there was no engine braking and I just kept running wide into turns."

Rossi took the lead for the first time on lap 10, but Pedrosa, the 21-year-old Spaniard who is in only his second season of MotoGP racing, refused to succumb and took the battle to the Italian for the rest of the race. Both made errors when they ran wide and left gaps, and with only two laps remaining Stoner was less than a second behind them as he learnt to cope with his malfunctioning bike.

Rossi won by 0.175 seconds to retain his second place in the World Championship, but Stoner retains a 76-point lead with four rounds remaining, and only a disaster could prevent him and Ducati from taking their first world titles.

The reigning champion Nicky Hayden rode his Repsol Honda into fourth place, from Marco Melandri on a Gresini Honda and John Hopkins on a Rizla Suzuki.