Bridgestone made the perfect start to the 2006 MotoGP world championship this afternoon with Italian rider Loris Capirossi completing a superb start-to-finish victory in the Spanish GP

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Capirossi's faultless display in the 27-lap season opener also chalked up another milestone for Bridgestone on an already historic weekend for the Japanese tyre manufacturer. Having completed its first clean sweep of the front row of a MotoGP grid in qualifying yesterday, Capirossi's sixth premier class victory was the first for Bridgestone on European soil with previous victories coming in the Far East and South America. Capirossi could not have given Bridgestone a better opening to the 2006 campaign after he completed the pole position, race victory and fastest lap hat-trick.

In front of a passionate sell-out home crowd of 131,000, Capirossi made a typical flying start to lead into the first corner, where world champion Valentino Rossi crashed in an incident further down the field. It was a lead that the 32-year Marlboro Ducati rider would never relinquish, as he set off at a blistering pace on Bridgestone's latest generation race tyres to lead by over two seconds after just four laps. Capirossi kept his composure despite coming under intense pressure from home favourite Dani Pedrosa shortly after the halfway stage of the race.

By lap 17, Capirossi's lead was cut to just 0.2s, but with a major shock on the cards, Capirossi comfortably edged away from Pedrosa using the much-improved endurance of the new Bridgestone race tyres over the final six laps. Today's race proved a disappointing affair for Capirossi's Ducati team-mate Sete Gibernau. Boosted by qualifying on the front row of the grid, his Bridgestone debut ended when he retired after just three laps having held third place.

Next best Bridgestone rider was Kawasaki's Shinya Nakano, who ended up seventh after a terrific fight with MotoGP rookie Casey Stoner. Another plus for Bridgestone on the opening day of the season was Suzuki's John Hopkins setting the fourth best time in the race, just 0.3s outside of Capirossi's outright quickest lap.

Bridgestone engineers now head to the second round of the championship in Qatar next month to battle with the unique conditions provided by the Losail International Circuit.