Casey Stoner dominates in Brno MotoGP
Ducati Marlboro Team rider Casey Stoner put in a faultless display in front of 141,000 fans at Brno today, winning the Czech Grand Prix to extend his World Championship advantage to 60 points.
Ducati Marlboro Team rider Casey Stoner put in a faultless display in front of 141,000 fans at Brno today, winning the Czech Grand Prix to extend his World Championship advantage to 60 points. Team-mate Loris Capirossi came in sixth after an entertaining tussle with several other riders.
It was another perfect weekend for the awesome Australian who dominated both days of practice, secured pole position and then led from start to finish, leaving his rivals floundering in his wake and stretching his lead in the second half of the 22 laps to beat runner-up John Hopkins by almost eight seconds. It was Stoner’s seventh victory of the year and his second consecutive success following a similarly dominant performance at last month’s US GP.
Capirossi spent much of the race battling back and forth with Chris Vermeulen and Valentino Rossi, eventually crossing line between the Australian and the Italian.
CASEY STONER, winner, World Championship leader on 246 points
"The whole weekend has gone pretty well for us, we struggled a little bit on Friday trying to get the set-up but by the time qualifying came around everything was working really well. The bike, the team and the tyres have been performing faultlessly at the past few races and it’s just nice to top things up with another win. It was a great race, we completed race distance on the tyres this morning so we knew they’d last fine."
"We got an awesome start, I started off with six tenths on John, then the gap went up to a second, up to 1.2 seconds, then back down to one second, then up a little bit, down a little bit. I felt like I was close enough to the limit and he was still there and chasing me down, I was surprised and a little worried he could catch me but we just kept our pace until eight laps to go, then we started to pull a small advantage. I just had to keep up my concentration level to try and pull that advantage."
I"’m still going out there trying to win races, that’s what we’re here for, we’re all out there fighting for every point. We knew we had a better package than everybody else today, so I just had to push through. That’s the way I look at it – if you concentrate on it race by race it makes things a little easier. We’ve got a few things and a lot of tyres to test here tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the tests because although we’ve got a really good package it’ll be great if we can improve it. Also these tests will help the machine for next year when hopefully we can come out a bit stronger."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, sixth place, ninth in World Championship on 87 points
"It’s a shame because today was a wasted opportunity. I made a mistake when I chose my tyre allocation on Thursday. I decided to trust one type of construction that worked very well last year, especially getting into the corners. But unfortunately it wasn’t competitive from the early stages of today’s race. I used a harder compound and it didn’t work so well. I was slow going into the corners and I took a couple of big risks in the last long corner."
"Valentino overtook me on one of those occasions, the front tucked and I went wide. After that I was able to pass him again but I couldn’t catch the front group. It’s a real shame because I think I could have stayed with Nicky [Hayden, third-place finisher]. We will do better in the next race at Misano, it’s another home GP and I look forward to racing there".
LIVIO SUPPO, Ducati MotoGP project manager
"That was another unbelievable job done by Casey, the team and Bridgestone. Casey has the right approach to racing, he comes to each race trying to do his best and if everything is okay then he is able to win easily. He is in superb form at the moment – he makes it easy for us! He is also managing the pressure of leading the championship really well. My thanks to him for another fantastic weekend, also to Loris and to our technical partners Bridgestone and Shell Advance."
