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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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"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."
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