In the previous three rounds, Rossi has been forced to ride conservatively to protect his tyres in the closing stages of each race, but the ever-improving Bridgestone-Yamaha partnership showed no signs of weakness in China - forcing Rossi's only challenger,
Dani Pedrosa, to finally wave the white flag with three laps to go.
Starting from second on the damp grid, behind
Colin Edwards, Rossi was fourth at the end of lap one, before passing world champion
Casey Stoner and fellow M1 rider Edwards by the end of the third lap.
Rossi's remaining target was Pedrosa and he made his move on the Spaniard at the end of the 1.2km back straight to take the lead on lap 5 of 22. The Italian remained in front to the chequered flag, but it was nail-bitingly close for the majority of the remaining laps, with less than half a second between the pair.
But Pedrosa finally cracked on lap 19, leaving Rossi to take his first victory since last September's Portuguese Grand Prix by 3.890secs over the Michelin-shod Honda rider, with Stoner's Ducati over 15secs back in third.
"After seven races it is a great feeling to win again; I am very happy!" said a clearly relieved Rossi, who kissed his M1 on the slow down lap. "This is a very important result for us because above all I was able to ride exactly how I wanted from start to finish and this was great fun for me.
"I had a great battle with Pedrosa and he pushed me hard and to be doing 1min 59s until the end was unbelievable!" recalled the five time
MotoGP world champion, who last took the title in 2005. "All weekend we were hoping the rain wouldn't come so when we saw it this morning we were quite disappointed, then it started to dry out so we were praying that it would dry completely; we were lucky today!
