Stoner Dominates At Catalunya, Closes In On Points Lead

Australian ace Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda RC212V) rocketed to a dominant victory at Catalunya. His third win of the year and his second consecutive success moves him to within seven points of series leader Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) who finished in second place. Lorenzo’s team-mate Ben Spies completed the podium just ahead of Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda RC212V). Pole position man Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini RC212V) came home in sixth spot.

Stoner was the clear favourite after setting a lightning-fast race pace throughout the two days of practice. Even though he missed out on pole position – because he didn’t have the set-up to fully exploit the extra grip of the softer tyres – the 2007 World Champion was confident he could be more than competitive today.

Second behind Lorenzo at the end of the first lap, Stoner took the lead at the start of lap two and stayed in front for the rest of the 25-lap race. He steadily built an advantage until the midway point when he sensibly eased his pace as light rainfall affected the final section of the Catalunya track. Lorenzo – who was able to gauge his pace in the treacherous conditions according to Stoner – closed the gap from more than two seconds to 1.8 seconds, but as soon as the rain stopped Stoner re-established his advantage. At one point he was almost four seconds ahead of Lorenzo. Finally he crossed the finish line 2.4s ahead.

Dovizioso had a highly competitive, but slightly frustrating race. He was in fourth place almost from start to finish, chasing Spies throughout, but never quite getting close enough to mount an assault on the American. Dovizioso had Valentino Rossi (Ducati) briefly get ahead of him in the early stages and spent the remainder of the race sandwiched between Spies and Rossi, playing the tricky game of simultaneously attacking and defending. The result moves the Italian into third place overall ahead of team-mate Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC212V) who missed this race after breaking his right collarbone at Le Mans three weeks ago.

Yesterday Simoncelli scored the first pole position of his MotoGP career and much was expected of the lanky Italian in today’s race. But he got swamped by his rivals in the rush to the first corner and ended the first lap down in seventh. Simoncelli was able to overcome Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and get close to Rossi, but in the end he had to settle for a sixth-place finish.

Toni Elias (LCR Honda MotoGP RC212V) had another difficult outing, crossing the line all alone in 13th position. The reigning Moto2 World Champion raced a modified chassis for the first time, but struggled with both front and rear grip and will try bigger changes for next weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Hiroshi Aoyama (San Carlo Honda Gresini RC212V) crashed out on lap four, taking Randy de Puniet (Ducati) with him. Neither rider was injured in the accident.

Stefan Bradl (Viessmann Kiefer Racing-Kalex) increased his points advantage in the Honda-powered Moto2 World Championship with his third victory from five races. It was another perfectly composed showing from the 21-year-old German who led all but one lap of the 23-lap race. Behind Bradl, the action was typically fraught with several riders tumbling out of the group battling for the lower rostrum positions.

Those incidents split the leading pack, leaving Bradl more than four seconds ahead of Marc Marquez (Team Catalunya Caixa Repsol-Suter) at the finish, with Aleix Espargaro (Pons HP40-Pons Kalex) achieving his first Grand Prix podium a further four seconds in arrears.

Bradl led from pole position, but soon came under attack from Julian Simon (Mapfre Aspar Team Moto2-Suter) who squeezed into the lead on lap two. The following lap Bradl was back in front again and although he was only metres ahead of the pursuing pack for much of the race, he never put a wheel wrong.

Things were very different behind the leader. Simon and Espargaro led the charge, disputing second place just ahead of Dominique Aegerter (Technomag-CIP-Suter). Kenan Sofuoglu (Technomag-CIP-Suter) was the big improver of the race, coming through from 17th on the grid to take third from Espargaro on lap 15. The following lap he was poised to pounce on Simon, but instead he clipped Simon’s rear end at turn 11 and both men went down heavily. Sofuoglu ran over the Spaniard who was later diagnosed with a broken tibia and fibula. Aegerter had fallen without injury a few corners earlier.

Those two incidents promoted Marquez to second and put Espargaro back in third. Simone Corsi (Ioda Racing Project-FTR) finished alone in fourth place, while four riders fought over fifth. That particular battle was won by Randy Krummenacher (GP Team Switzerland Kiefer Racing-Kalex), the young Swiss just ahead of Alex De Angelis (JIR Moto2-Motobi), Esteve Rabat (Blusens STX-FTR) and Mika Kallio (Marc VDS Racing Team-Suter).

Thomas Luthi (Interwetten Paddock Moto2-Suter) and Yuki Takahashi (Gresini Racing Moto2-Moriwaki) escaped serious injury when they both fell at high speed on lap six, after Luthi lost control, taking Takahashi with him.

After today’s Catalan GP the paddock is already packing up in preparation for the northward trip over the English Channel for the coming weekend’s British GP at Silverstone.

Casey Stoner

Repsol Honda: winner
“We got a reasonably good start, but not as good as Jorge. I wanted to try to pass him early on, but had to wait until the end of the first lap. From this point I just tried to put in the consistent laps as we did in the practice sessions to see if he could stay with me. Fortunately I was able to open up an advantage without pushing too hard or feeling too much pressure. I was really happy, the bike was feeling fantastic and then it started to rain. There was enough rain there to make you think that it will affect the bike, and in the last corner there was enough rain to make the track slippery. As I was always the first to arrive to the wet area of the track, I watched what the others were doing [from the information displayed on his pit board] and if they had started to catch me then I would push and if I start to pull an advantage then I would back off a little. I’m just happy I kept the bike upright at this stage and I want to thank all my team at Repsol Honda for all the hard work this weekend. We now head to Silverstone next week where we’ll also be looking to fight for victory. I just hope Dani can make a return there also and I wish him a fast recovery.”