Stoner streets the field for fourth straight Island victory

Casey Stoner destroyed a MotoGP field full of World Champions to win his fourth straight home race at the 2010 IVECO Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Victoria’s Phillip Island circuit on Sunday.

Starting from his 21st premier-class pole position, Stoner, who turned 25 on Saturday, dealt with the early attentions of new World Champion Jorge Lorenzo on a Yamaha and his own Ducati team-mate Nicky Hayden to take a first-corner lead he never relinquished over the 27-lap journey.

“When I won here twice in a row and went for the third nobody expected it,” said Stoner, “but this year they weren’t going to take any other result!

“This weekend everything’s gone so well, from the first free practice we were happy with the way the bike was working.

“Before the race I was more nervous than I usually am – I need a few more nerves before other races because I didn’t make a mistake!”

Stoner’s final winning margin in his 23rd premier-class victory was 8.598 seconds as Lorenzo made do with a comfortable second place. “When you see that Casey has won here four in a row you know it’s going to be very complicated to beat him,” admitted the Spaniard. “When I was behind him at the start I saw that he had a new rear tyre and I thought he would be very, very careful at the start – but he was the opposite!”

Lorenzo came home almost 10 seconds ahead of a thrilling battle for the final podium place.

It pitted Lorenzo’s team-mate Valentino Rossi against the man who will be the Italian’s Ducati sidekick next year, American Nicky Hayden.

Rossi, who has been on the Phillip Island podium for the last 12 years in a row, started from eighth on the grid but had worked his way up to third by quarter-distance. But Hayden, the lap record-holder here, swept past with two laps to go, forcing Rossi into a desperate last-lap manoeuvre up the inside of the Turn 4 hairpin to regain third spot and keep it by just 0.038 of a second.

“It was a great battle with Nicky,” said Rossi. “I’m so happy with third place – a podium is okay when you start from the third row. I tried to push but Nicky always came with me, he attacked with two laps to go and we had fun fighting on the last lap.”

Behind them MotoGP rookies Ben Spies on a Yamaha and Honda rider Marco Simoncelli duelled it out for fifth spot, the American winning that one after losing out earlier when he rocketed off the outside of the front row into Turn 1 only to be relegated to sixth.

The third American in the 15-rider field, Colin Edwards, could not capitalise on his own second-row start and his Yamaha slipped to seventh at the end ahead of Honda’s Marco Melandri.

French rider Randy de Puniet recovered from an early off-track moment at Turn 4 to claim 10th place from Mika Kallio (Ducati) as Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki), Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) and Hector Barbera (Ducati) rounded out the points-scoring finishers.

The only starter not to make it to the end was Andrea Dovizioso, whose exit on lap 4 completed a miserable weekend for the works Honda outfit – Dani Pedrosa had pulled out of the race after struggling through two days with his injured collarbone.

With two races remaining Lorenzo has 333 points to Pedrosa’s 228, but Stoner is closing on second spot with 205 and Rossi is now on 197.