Stoner cruises to Montmelo win

Added on Sunday, June 5th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments

Casey Stoner took an unrivalled victory at the Montmelo circuit in Barcelona this afternoon, in a dominant performance for his Repsol Honda team.

After narrowly missing out on pole position yesterday, Stoner managed to steal the lead from a fast starting Jorge Lorenzo on just the second corner, from where he never looked back. Lorenzo managed to hold onto a second place finish, to ensure he maintained his advantage in the championship standings.

As Stoner disappeared into the distance, Lorenzo was left with a battle on his hands, in the form of his Yamaha teammate, Ben Spies. After twenty-five laps Spies held on to score his first podium finish in MotoGP, with Andrea Dovizioso breathing down his neck in fourth.

A wet start to the weekend raised questions as to whether rain would make an appearance during the race. As a few drops of rain began to fall just twelve laps from the chequered flag, drivers were informed they could pit to change to their wet weather bike if necessary, however it proved to be just a few drops.

After just beating his Duacti teammate to a seventh place qualifying session yesterday afternoon, Valentino Rossi worked his way through the field to fifth place, where he remained until the chequered flag. Meanwhile, pole sitter Marco Simoncelli suffered a difficult outing, when he fell down the order to a distant sixth place, after claiming his first MotoGP pole position yesterday.

Cal Crutchlow endured a lonely finish in seventh place, ahead of Nicky Hayden in eighth. Vetran Loris Capirossi made up ground on his starting position to complete a strong top ten finish in ninth, whilst Karel Abraham rounded out the top ten.

Just three more riders took the chequered flag, with Hector Barbera, Alvaro Bautista and Toni Elias finishing eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth. Randy De Puniet and Hiroshi Aoyama failed to finish, with both riders falling from their bikes simultaneously, however both were uninjured.

After a successful weekend, Stoner is now just seven points adrift of Lornezo, with a long way still to go. The next outing for MotoGP is next weekend at the British Silverstone circuit.

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