FIAT Yamaha Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing) » More Photos

Hayden finished tenth after a long battle against Vermeulen's Suzuki (eighth) and Melandri's Honda (ninth), just 0.6s separating the trio at the finish. Hayden suffered from a poor starting position and set-up problems that did not allow him to push to the limit.

"You put yourself in a hole when you qualify in 13th," Hayden said. "It was a tough race but really I just didn't have the race pace to go with the lead guys. In the last couple of laps I had a pretty good scrap with Vermeulen and Melandri but I was a lot further back than I would have liked. My bike just didn't feel planted in a lot of the fast corners here."

Pedrosa was the star Honda rider, as he had been in the dry all weekend, and he was in contention until mid-race when he could not match Rossi's pace. "I could see that Valentino was getting away slowly but as I tried to speed up I was getting slides from both wheels, so I couldn't push the tires any harder and I had to close the throttle a little bit and settle for second," Pedrosa said.

Stoner had led the opening three laps and battled with Pedrosa and Rossi before slipping back in his late race battle with Barros.

"I knew after the warm-up that I would struggle a bit because we did not have the perfect set-up in the dry," Stoner said. "The biggest difficulty I had was turning in the long corners and I also lacked a bit traction."

After starting on the sixth row of the grid Texan Colin Edwards showed a strong race pace with little reward, finishing 12th after another disappointing weekend at Mugello.

"It was pretty terrible weekend from start to finish," Edwards said."I lost seven seconds on the first lap because there was so much traffic and I lost a lot time with only two dry practice sessions, trying stuff which didn't work. This is my bogey track."

It was a forgettable weekend for Team KR-Honda with Kenny Roberts Jr finishing 17th and last, while younger brother Kurtis Roberts retiring after three laps after gambling with set-up.

The Mugello win by Rossi sets the scene for a crucial series of June races with Barcelona, Donington and Assen following in quick succession. After his latest Italian GP victory Rossi was quick to point that three of his favorites are coming up, and his near perfect race here is an ominous sign of his form as mid-season approaches.