Stoner takes win 10

Australia rider Casey Stoner continued to stamp his authority on the MotoGP championship, taking his tenth win of the season, two races after he sealed the 2007 championship on his Ducati.

The young Australian was challenged by Honda riders Marco Melandri and Dani Pedrosa. But eventually managed to pull away, finishing 1.7 seconds ahead of his rivals.

Here is what the riders said…

Casey Stoner, Ducati, first:
"The bike, the tyres and everything were performing really well but it was a very, very difficult race. The biggest battle I had was being out front by myself and not having anyone to focus on.

I've been fine with it all year but this track seems to take it out of you a little bit more. Sometime after half-distance I had a couple of front-end loses, so I had to change my style a little bit, the way I was going into corners, to make sure I didn't lose the front any more. That took up a lot more of my energy and concentration, so it was quite hard to keep it up at the end.

The reason the gap was going up and down so much was because I was trying to get a break for one lap, just to recover a little bit. Unfortunately I'd let them catch too much, so then I'd have to really concentrate for another lap which would take more of my energy away, so I think I'm very lucky and very happy to come out on top. Marco and Dani were fast right to the end, they were putting a lot of pressure on me and they never let me go. After I crossed the line I started to feel a bit dizzy, so it was definitely a hard race."

Marco Melandri, Honda, second:
"We had a very good warm up this morning and I was very confident for the race. I made a stupid mistake on the warm up lap trying to adjust the valve on the water feed into my helmet, I pushed it too hard and broke it every time I braked the water came into my helmet.

I was very nervous on the start line and didn't make a good start but after a few laps I said to myself; 'Concentrate' I found a good rhythm but it was difficult to pass Dani (Pedrosa). I was strong in the twisty part of the track but Dani had incredible acceleration better than Ducati. I tried to pass him as quick as possible to try and pass Casey (Stoner) and I made a mistake and lost one second. But I pushed to catch him and was at one second with six laps to go. But I couldn't do it so with two to go I concentrated on preserving my position. That got me fourth place in the championship.

We had a very good package of bike and tyres today and I'm happy with this first podium at this track. When we came here I felt that this would not be a good track for us but this race proves that if you have a good bike and tyres you can go fast at every track.

This is like a win for me. I'm happy and want to thank Fausto and the team for their great cooperation. The asphalt is very bumpy but it had good grip."

Dani Pedrosa, Honda, third:
"I pushed very hard at the beginning because from what we'd seen in practice I was expecting the grip level from the tyres to fall away towards the end of the race. My plan was to make a gap if possible and handle the grip situation as well as I could. For the first laps I was quite consistent behind Casey but when I started to brake later with a full tank of fuel I was losing the front end, so I dropped back a little and that's when Marco passed me. At that stage I was trying to maintain my rhythm and, as the race went on and the fuel load came down, I began to get a better feeling at the front of the machine under braking.

I was really surprised about the high pace in the final part of the race because we didn't expect to maintain these lap times based on what we'd seen in practice. So I must say thank you to Michelin because we were able to get on the podium today thanks to the consistency of the tyre performance.

Now I'm looking forward to Valencia because it's a home race and I'd like to get good result for the fans. I hope we can take another step forward and get even closer to taking the win."

Results:

  (15. West)

Points:

  (15 West 59)