Stoner wins at Le Mans
Added on Sunday, May 15th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments
Stoner wins at Le Mans
Casey Stoner transformed his pole position into victory at Le Mans this afternoon, giving him his second win of the season.
Despite starting from pole position, Stoner’s Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa made his trademark start to jump into the lead from the off. Before long Stoner had reclaimed his number one spot after an in-house battle with Pedrosa, and began to edge away.
Behind the action soon hotted up, with drama following Pedrosa later on in the race. After earning a top spot Andrea Dovizioso was able to fight his way to second place, which he eventually managed to hold until the chequered flag. The latter stages of the race saw Dovizioso come under pressure from a charging Valentino Rossi, however the Italian was no match for him, with Dovizioso claiming a definite second place on the final tour.
With Rossi claiming his strongest finishing position of the year so far, all attentions turned to fourth place. After starting from the second row of the grid for the first time this season, reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo also narrowly missed out on a podium finish, taking fourth at the chequered flag.
After being involved in a collision with Pedrosa earlier in the race, Simoncelli was given a ride through penalty after officials decided his move on the Spaniard was unfair. He managed to fight his way back to fifth place, to finish narrowly ahead of Ben Spies on sixth.
Nicky Hayden was the second of the Ducati riders in seventh place, whilst Hiroshi Aoyama crossed the line in a lonely eighth place. Hector Barbera and Karel Abraham completed the top ten, finishing inches apart as the chequered flag fell.
Only three more riders finished the race, with Toni Elias, Alvaro Bautista and Colin Edwards, with four riders failing to finish. Loris Capirossi, Cal Crutchlow andRandy De Puniet joined Pedrosa on the sidelines. It was later announced that Pedrosa sustained a broken collarbone from his collision with Simoncelli.
Commenting on his victory, Stoner told MotoGP.com: “The whole weekend has gone so well for us, arriving here from the Portugal test with the bike almost the same and we have improved small things here and there and only needed to adjust the set up for this circuit. We went into the race confident, at the beginning of the race Pedrosa was very fast and he was difficult to pass, as he as being cautious. When I overtook him I thought I might be able to take some advantage but he was able to match my times and follow me for some laps, so I continued to push more than I prefer too and eventually I put a gap between us. From this point, the race came to me and I was able to focus on my consistency and win.”
The next race is at Barcelona on the 5th June.
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