Stoner extends MotoGP lead

Australian Ducati rider Casey Stoner led last weekend's Czech MotoGP at Brno from start to finish, with Suzuki rider (but not for long - he's contracted to Kawasaki next year) John Hopkins coming in an impressive second. It was the latter's best ever MotoGP result.

The race itself turned into a procession at the head of the pack, with Honda rider and current world champ Nicky Hayden coming in third - a good result in what has been a lousy season for the young American. Hs team-mate Dani Pedrosa followed in fourth.

Australian Suzuki rider Chris Vermeulen scored fifth after passing former world champion Valentino Rossi.

It was a lousy day for the colourful Rossi, who found himself struggling to maintain a decent pace mid-field, at a stage of the season when he really had to be up front and taking the fight to Stoner. He is clearly less than impressed with his Yamaha at the moment, which was noticeably down on speed when compared to Capirossi's Ducati.

Speaking of Capirossi, he has confirmed he'll be with Suzuki next year, and perhaps got a clear warning he won't necessarily be top dog when team-mate-to-be Vermeulen slipped under him during the race.

Stoner now enjoys a 60 point lead - which is starting to look comfortable, but it's still theoretically possible for him to lose the title fight.

Here is what the riders had to say...

Casey Stoner - Ducati, first:
"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."

John Hopkins - Suzuki, second:
"I can say that I am really, really happy with today's result and the whole weekend in general. I got off the line well and then passed Dani and Nicky in quick succession to get up to second. My goal had been to be in second by turn three because I knew Casey would be in first and I didn't want him to get away. I tried to stay with him, but he had an unbelievable pace and I was pushing the front and the rear to the limit - which with the Bridgestones is pretty high! I tried hard to catch him but after a while I decided to pull it in a bit and make sure I got that second place.

The bike and the tyres worked great today and a big thanks to my team for a fantastic job and to Bridgestone for such awesome tyres. Congratulations to Chris on a great ride today, we're tied on points now, so that added competition is good for the whole team for the rest of the season. I am sure everyone at Rizla Suzuki is happy with this result and I'm more happy for them as they all deserve it and it's good for me to give these podiums back to Suzuki after all they have done for me.

"I'd like to finally wish Taro Sekiguchi all the best after his horrendous crash in the 250 race earlier today. I and all the team hope he is ok and makes a quick recovery and return to racing."

Nicky Hayden - Honda, third:
"Well I'm pretty happy with the podium and I feel like we've done a decent job this weekend. Yesterday afternoon we made quite a big change with the front forks and I liked the results a lot. When I got into third position on lap two of the race I was thinking 'now you've got to get on his back wheel' and for about three corners it was looking pretty good. But then I got onto the straight, looked up and realised that really I was just dreaming. So I just kept my rhythm and I really feel like I got the best out of the bike, myself and the tyres today - I don't feel like I left much on the table. So thanks to my team because those guys did a good job. Hopefully we can keep this form going and get a little bit stronger from now on. I'd also like to dedicate this podium to Cedric Laprael, the parts guy in the Repsol Honda Team, who isn't here this weekend because he had a parachuting accident during the summer break. Get well Cedric. The team's going to stay for a couple of days testing with some new parts from Honda and a lot of Michelin tyres so we can to try and bridge the gap to these front guys."

Valentino Rossi - Yamaha, seventh:
"We expected a difficult race today because we knew our potential here wasn't very high after the last two days. However it was even worse than we expected! I tried to keep my rhythm going but, after only seven or eight laps, the tyre started to slide a lot on the right side and from then on I wasn't able to open the throttle.

"Throughout the weekend we have done everything to try to find more traction. We have changed the setting a lot to try to find a way to make the tyre work, but unfortunately during the race we had no grip. Also, with the setting we had to use, we had to sacrifice some of our corner speed and this also slowed us down. It was very difficult today. I was able to do 1.59s to start with but after a few laps the tyre made a big step down and then I just had to wait for the end of the race.

"I had a hard time with Capirossi at the start; in some parts I was faster than him but I couldn't overtake him because he was pulling away from me on the straights. Eventually I got past him but he stayed with me and I couldn't pull clear. I pushed as hard as I could; at that time I wasn't too fast but not too slow either, but after that my tyre was finished and then Vermeulen came, then Loris again...I am sad because I wasn't even able to try to fight with them today. Towards the end I had to push at the limit to stay in front of de Puniet and luckily I managed, but we were a very long way from a good performance. I tried to change my style, to ride in a different way to help the situation, but it was no good.

"We have a test now but in reality our situation is quite bad and we have a few different problems to deal with. We will try to make the best of the next two days of work and to try to find something different for the next few races. We have to wait and see what we find, but for sure it's going to be very difficult. This is a very hard moment that we're in. We have six races to go and we just have to work as hard as we can to try to find a way to make some good results."

1   Casey Stoner   Ducati   AUS   43'45.810
2  John Hopkins  Suzuki  USA  0'7.903
3  Nicky Hayden  Honda  USA  0'13.100
4  Daniel Pedrosa  Honda  ESP  0'15.800
5  Chris Vermeulen  Suzuki  AUS  0'17.303
6  Loris Capirossi  Ducati  ITA  0'19.363
7  Valentino Rossi  Yamaha  ITA  0'22.485
8  Randy De Puniet  Kawasaki  FRA  0'23.073
9  Alex Barros  Ducati  BRA  0'32.292
10  Carlos Checa  Honda  ESP  0'35.153
11  Toni Elias  Honda  ESP  0'37.748
12  Anthony West  Kawasaki  AUS  0'38.250
13  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha  FRA  0'43.694
14  Shinya Nakano  Honda  JPN  0'57.069
15  Kurtis Roberts  KR212V  USA  1'9.603
17  Makoto Tamada  Yamaha  JPN  1'25.804

Points:
1 Stoner 246
2 Rossi 186
3 Pedrosa 168
4 Vermeulen 124
5 Hopkins 124
6 Melandri 113
7 Edwards 93
8 Hayden 89
9 Capirossi 87
10 Barros 83
(15 Anthon West 33)

Sources: Ducati.com, Suzuki-racing.com, world.honda.com, Yamaha-racing.com