Rossi: It feels like a long time.

After five races without a win, Valentino Rossi's longest losing streak since 2000 came to an end in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix - when the Italian also became the first rider to win a grand prix with 125, 250, 500, 990 and 800cc machinery.

Rossi returned to the top step of the podium for the first time since Sepang last year by leading all 27-laps at Jerez - the predicted challenge of pole sitter Dani Pedrosa never materialising. The Spaniard clung to Rossi for the first half of the race, but thereafter the Italian's Fiat Yamaha broke clear for a confident victory.

"Our first priority today was to get points and I knew that to win I would have to ride at the maximum, but today my Yamaha really flew and I was able to do a great race. It feels like a long time since I last won and this is a great emotion and a very special victory for me, especially in Jerez in front of this great crowd," said Rossi. "I got a great start, didn't make any mistakes and had a good battle with Pedrosa, who we knew would be the danger today. Qatar [round one] was good but to taste victory again is a wonderful feeling."

Against expectation, Rossi had struggled somewhat during the three free practice sessions at Jerez.

"We had some problems on Friday and again [on Saturday] and then after this morning's warm-up we made some more small modifications; I have to thank my team, from Jeremy Burgess to all my mechanics and engineers," explained Rossi. "They did a fantastic job for me this weekend and they all deserve this win. My tyre worked very well today and Michelin have done a good job too in difficult conditions, so thank you to them. I'm really happy for Colin too and to have both Yamahas on the podium shows that we're in good shape for what's going to be a long season.

"After the situation at this race last year, this is much, much better!" added the seven times world champion, referring to his first turn fall and eventual 14th place finish at Jerez 2006.

However, Rossi also warned that the next two 'power' circuits - Istanbul and Shanghai - could well expose the M1's top speed weakness: "Now we have two race tracks which might be difficult for us so it's very important to leave here leading the championship."

Completing a near perfect day for Yamaha was Rossi's team-mate Colin Edwards, who completed the podium after an often lonely race. Given the performance of both Rossi and Edwards during the race, many suspected that their practice 'problems' had been exaggerated - but Edwards maintained that his team, and Michelin, had come to the rescue.

"On Friday morning you wouldn't have thought we would end up on the podium, but here we are and it was a good race for me," began the Texan. "I've got to say an enormous thank you to all my guys because they worked non-stop all weekend and came up with some pretty good solutions to the problems we had. Michelin also had something up their sleeve for us and seemed to know what would work and they were proved right - they've done a good job for us this weekend.

"I got a good start and my best move was getting past Checa so quickly; I knew I had to find some clear air and try to hang onto the back of Valentino and Pedrosa. I made a couple of small mistakes and they were able to pull away from me a bit which was a pity, but my bike was working well so I was able to keep a pretty good pace throughout.

"Towards the end I could see Elias had appeared behind me and I didn't like the idea of him getting spurred on by his home fans and trying to snatch a podium, so I really had to keep hammering away! The last few laps were a little hairy at times as I started to slide but anyway we managed to make it and it feels great to be up here on the podium again," he concluded.

Meanwhile, team director Davide Brivio hinted that the team's apparent practice problems might have been caused by saving its preferred tyres for the race.

"The new tyre regulations mean we have to manage what we have very carefully and this is a great result for us," he said. "It's also a very important result because we now have two tricky circuits and it's good to be going into this stage of the season in front. Thanks again to all the team and everyone involved, we're very happy today!"