Stoner fall hands Rossi win
Added on Monday, August 18th, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments
Stoner fall hands Rossi win
Valentino Rossi was gifted victory in Brno on Sunday after Casey Stoner crashed out to throw away a commanding lead.
The Italian was a full second behind the Stoner before the reigning world champion slid out on lap six under little pressure to hand Rossi an easy victory in the Czech Republic and a 50-point lead in the MotoGP riders championship.
In a race which, as expected, was dominated by the Bridgestone riders, Rossi finished a massive 17 seconds ahead of second-paced Toni Elias – his first podium since September 2007, with Loris Capirossi securing his first podium for Rizla Suzuki and the team’s third podium in as many races.
Shinya Nakano was fourth after impressing on the factory Honda whilst Kawasaki rider Anthony West secured his best placing in MotoGP with a fifth-place finish.
But it was Rossi who stole the headlines once again, with the former World Champion now the hot favourite to finish the season on top of the riders’ standings.
“I was confident today because my bike was fast from Friday practice, and with Jeremy we made a small modification to the front after warm-up to allow me to be a bit faster in some sections, and it worked very well,” said Rossi.
“For a short time I was worried but then, after two laps, I understood that my bike was working very well and that I was fast enough to try to catch him. I had closed a little bit already and gradually the red bike was becoming a bit bigger in front of me, and I think this is when he started to push harder and made his mistake.
“I was anticipating a very hard battle if I did catch him, so when I saw the red bike slide out I could hardly believe it – this made things a lot easier for me!
“After that I just enjoyed riding my bike; my Bridgestone tyres worked very well until the end and my M1 felt very good.
“Of course I can’t count this as a complete victory because Casey fell, and I am sorry for him, but this is racing and I have to be happy with this result.”
Rossi also warned that whilst the 50-point margin seems comprehensive, it was far from unassailable.
“We are 50 points clear which is a lot and I am very excited to be going to Misano in this situation,” he added. “However we know that 50 points is still not always enough when you have someone as strong as Casey and so we won’t relax.”
Stoner on the other hand, seemed resigned to losing his championship when questioned by BBC Sport.
“It was a long shot for the season – we gave too many points away and we needed to win these races,” said Stoner. “We did the best we could, but it’s on to the next one.
“We’re going to keep fighting race by race. The championship is very difficult but five or six races ago we were way out of it, so we’ve just got to keep plugging away race by race.”
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