Valentino Rossi notched up his 100th MotoGP victory at Assen, with a convincing performance that allowed him to dominate the race from early on.

Initially it was Dani Pedrosa who performed his trademark lightning lunge into the lead off the start line, but that was a short-lived affair and he was quickly shuffled back to third place by Casey Stoner and Rossi. Jorge Lorenzo had the worst start of the leaders, dropping back to 6th place before getting his act together to record the fastest time on lap 2 and get past Colin Edwards and Chris Vermeulen.

Stoner’s time at the front was just as short-lived as Pedrosa’s, with Rossi dispatching him and quickly sating to build up a lead while his chief threat – his own team mate, Lorenzo – still had to get past Stoner and Lorenzo before he could even think of taking the fight to Rossi.

Lorenzo took care of Pedrosa toward the en