Stoner puts pressure on Rossi
Added on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Stoner puts pressure on Rossi
Casey Stoner secured an impressive victory in Sunday’s British Grand Prix at Donington Park to bring himself back into championship contention.
The reigning world champion, who started from pole position, raced to a processional victory at Donington, securing his second victory of the season in the process and closed the gap on Valentino Rossi in the rider’s championship to just 45 points.
The Australian appeared to have overcome the problems that dogged his Ducati earlier in the year to finish almost six seconds ahead of Rossi and post a fastest lap time of 1:28.773.
The result was Stoner’s first victory since round one in Qatar but his third consecutive podium and the 22-year-old believes that the repeat of last season’s success has brought him back into the title reckoning.
“Now we know we can fight for it (the title) now,” said Stoner. “We hope it’s game on now, we didn’t think this was a track we could do well on.”
“Whether we can chase them (the series leaders) down is going to be difficult as they are finishing high in every race.”
Valentino Rossi, who maintains his lead at the top of the championship after a second place finish, admitted that Stoner’s power advantage was too much of a hurdle to overcome.
“We tried for victory but Casey was too strong,” said the Italian, who was celebrating his 200th Grand Prix. “I’m back on the podium here in front of large crowd and in front of Pedrosa, so I have added four more points to my lead over him.
“That is 200 GPs and I am still learning! We wanted to try and win the 200th, but it is good to be on podium and at top of title race.”
British supporters hoping to see James Toseland’s first podium were left disappointed however as the Doncaster-born rider, starting from 16th on the grid, fell on the first corner of the very first lap.
