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Stoner's night dream, Rossi's nightmare |
Despite slipping back to sixth during some 'hectic' early laps, reigning champion Casey Stoner lived up to pre-race expectations with a calculated ride through the pack, taking the lead on lap 8 of 22 and - after shaking off determined rookie pole sitter Jorge Lorenzo - rode to a five-second victory.
"That was a fantastic race and I really enjoyed it - it was like being back in 125s!" smiled the Ducati Marlboro star, who took his first ever premier-class win at Qatar last year. "The first few laps were really hectic, there were guys bashing fairings and I just tried to stay out of the way. When I got my chance to get through I took it and from there I just focused on setting my pace.
"Jorge rode brilliantly - it wasn't an easy race by any means, especially at the start," insisted the Australian. "Over the first few laps I was struggling a bit for grip but then the tyres got up to temperature and improved. We knew we had a pretty good package for the race but obviously we couldn't be sure that things would go as well as that. I want to say thanks to everybody at Ducati for a great job, my team, the guys at Bridgestone... Thanks everybody."
"Casey is unique... there's nothing more to add to that. He didn't even make the smallest mistake today and once again he showed why the number 1 is on his bike," added Ducati MotoGP project director Livio Suppo.
Valentino Rossi had hoped that his winter switch to Bridgestone would allow him to stay with Stoner, after misery with Michelin in 2007, but the Fiat Yamaha star's fortunes deteriorated on Sunday.
The seven-time world champion overtook Dani Pedrosa to lead the race as early as lap 5, but Stoner took the position from him just three laps later as Rossi began a downward spiral that saw team-mate Lorenzo, Pedrosa and then rookie Andrea Dovizioso also overtake the #46 by the chequered flag.
"We expected a difficult race here, but actually not as difficult as this!" confessed the Fiat Yamaha star. "We haven't been fast here in Qatar since last week's night test but, despite this, I thought we might be able to fight for the podium. Tonight however it was really difficult and now we have to understand the reason for this result. After five or six laps I started doing 56.4 and 56.5 and from then on I couldn't improve on that pace until the end. I was very fast in braking, but not so fast in the corners."
It was a frustrating result for Rossi, who had already been forced to watch all three Michelin-shod M1s qualify on the front row - and he came close to being beaten by two of them in the race, with Tech 3's James Toseland crossing the finish line less than a second behind.
Nevertheless, Rossi insisted that Stoner's dominant performance indicated the potential of his new tyres.
"We know that we can make our Bridgestone tyres work better than this, because they are winning tyres and tonight they showed it once again," he explained. "Throughout the winter, at all tracks, we were very fast and this is the only one where we were not. Now our task is to understand why this happened.
