Stoner seals 2011 title at home
Added on Sunday, October 16th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments
Stoner seals 2011 title at home
Casey Stoner became the 2011 MotoGP World Champion at Phillip Island today, with a race win to sweeten the deal.
After the morning warm-up session Yamaha swiftly withdrew thier riders Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies, following two separate incidents. Due to Lorenzo’s absence, Stoner’s race win was enough to secure him the 2011 championship title in front of his home crowd.
After a grid reshuffle to account for the missing riders, the race got underway. Pole sitter Stoner fired his Repsol Honda machine into turn one at the head of the field, as Nicky Hayden and Marco Simoncelli followed behind.
Before long, second place changed whe Simoncelli battled his way ahead of Hayden to slot into his strongest position of his MotoGP career. From here he spent the rest of the race tangled in a fiesty battle with the chasing Andrea Dovizioso.
As Stoner built a healthy advantage at the front talk of rain threatened to halter his pace. However, the weather intervention held off until the closing stage of the race, with just a few spots falling part way through.
As the final phase of the race approached the rain again surfaced, with a heavy downpour disrupting proceedings. Before long the white flag flew to signal the riders were allowed to change to their wet set-up bikes, however the front runners declined. A few riders pitted to make the switch, including Hayden.
The wet weather caught out a number of riders, including Brit Cal Crutchlow, Alvaro Bautista and Hiroshi Aoyama. But back up at the front it was time for the chequered flag, as race winner Stoner launched to the World Championship title, also scoring Honda’s first drivers title since 2006.
Simoncelli hung onto second place and a strong podium finish, whilst Dovizioso completed the podium. Dani Pedrosa crossed the finish line in a solitary fourth place, some way ahead of fifth placed Colin Edwards and Randy De Puniet.
Hayden’s switch of bike saw him score a seventh place finish, with Toni Elias eighth, Loris Capirossi ninth and Karel Abraham tenth. An eventful race saw just ten riders take the chequered flag, with Valentino Rossi joining the three fallers in retirement when he crashed out after an overtaking move on Bautista.
Despite the champinship title already being decided there are still two rounds left to run. The next round is at the Malaysian Sepang circuit next weekend (23rd October).
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