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Valentino Rossi went top of the MotoGP table with a second-placed finish in Portugal this weekend, after previous leader Nicky Hayden crashed out of the race.

Rossi finished a mere fraction of a second behind Toni Elias, who took the first victory of his fledgling MotoGP career by coming from a mediocre starting position to harass the defending champion and then dramatically pip him at the death.

Yet second place was enough for Rossi to take an eight point lead in the overall standings with just one race to go, after Dani Pedrosa disastrously crashed into Honda teammate Hayden, knocking them both out of the race.

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The Yamaha rider commented afterwards: "I'm really happy to be finally leading the championship; this is the most important thing for today, even if I am disappointed not to have won!"

He said of the race itself: "It was a very hard race for me and I had to push all the way because Kenny [Roberts], Toni and Colin [Edwards] were very fast too. Going into the last chicane I knew I had to come out in front, but then Toni was just a little bit faster than me to the line."

Rossi was quick to give praise to teammate Edwards, whose performance he felt contributed heavily to the final outcome and who he believed had been unlucky not to finish on the podium himself.

He also praised the performance of Elias, who was himself understandably delighted by his win and admitted that he simply could not believe he had managed to pull it off.

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