News

Stoner fails to capitalise on Rossi crash

15/07/07

By David Miller

Ducati's Casey Stoner should have been screaming into his crash helmet after his pit-board told him Valentino Rossi crashed out of this afternoon's German MotoGP race with 25 laps to go. However, in the Bavarian heat, Stoner's tyres let him down and he failed to bag the 20 or 25 points which Rossi had potentially gifted him.

Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa led the race from start to finish, and won his first GP since Donington Park last year with a margin of more than 13 seconds. The gap at least year's race here was just 0.3s covering the top three riders.

"I'm very very happy with the result today. This is a victory I'd like to dedicate to the Repsol Honda Team and to HRC because they have been working really hard for a long time without getting the results.  Now they have some reward," said the Spaniard.

"Also I'm pleased for the fans because they've given me great support even when I wasn't winning. The race went very well obviously. I made a good start, pushed hard from the beginning and was able to open up a gap and control things from the front."

The Doctor was stuck in seventh behind Randy De Puniet and could see the group in front, which included Stoner and title rival Dani Pedrosa, getting away. Rossi nosed his Yamaha in front of De Puniet on a dirty part of a right-hand corner, got on the throttle early and lost his front Michelin.

"I lost some places at the start and had to wait a lap before I could start to push, but everything was feeling very good," said Rossi. "Getting past de Puniet was hard because in the part of the track where it's best to overtake he was very fast. Finally I made my move and I made a great pass but I made a mistake and lost the front. I'm so disappointed because today our package was working very well and we missed the chance to make up a lot of points on Stoner."

Stoner was lying in second, good for at least 20 points, which would have put him 41 in front of Rossi until his tyres went off with 11 laps to go. Gresini Honda's Marco Melandri went past, followed by team-mate Loris Capirossi a lap later into the first turn. Loris, who is looking for a job next year, managed to get away and finish second. Capirossi said: "It's been a long time, but I'm back! My team worked really hard here to find the best solution for the race. We changed the weight distribution, putting more weight on the front to give me more confidence going into the turns."

Stoner said: "At the start of the race I was pretty happy sitting behind Dani. He was able to find a little more traction than me in most parts and he had a bit more confidence in his bike through a lot of the turns, so I was just trying to stay there or thereabouts and see what happened at the end of the race."

"I didn't want to push too much harder, I was slowly pulling a gap on Melandri behind me and I thought I really want to save my tyres for the end. Then unfortunately we lost some rear grip and we weren't able to keep the same lap times, so we slowly started to drop through the pack, but we ended up fifth."

Pedrosa's team-mate Hayden came from a dismal 14th place on the grid to claim a second podium in three races. Compatriot Colin Edwards was struggling with grip mid-race but his Michelins came back to him towards the end and he was able to stick with Hayden's pace and claimed fourth.

Results

1 25 26 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 41'53.196
2 20 65 Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Ducati Marlboro Team DUCATI 42'06.362
3 16 1 Nicky HAYDEN USA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 42'09.967
4 13 5 Colin EDWARDS USA Fiat Yamaha Team YAMAHA 42'11.495
5 11 27 Casey STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team DUCATI 42'24.622
6 10 33 Marco MELANDRI ITA Honda Gresini HONDA 42'25.113
7 9 21 John HOPKINS USA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 42'26.591
8 8 13 Anthony WEST AUS Kawasaki Racing Team KAWASAKI 42'34.390
9 7 66 Alex HOFMANN GER Pramac d'Antin DUCATI 42'36.410
10 6 84 Michel FABRIZIO ITA Honda Gresini HONDA 42'37.655
11 5 71 Chris VERMEULEN AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 42'55.090
12 4 80 Kurtis ROBERTS USA Team Roberts KR212V 43'03.917
13 3 6 Makoto TAMADA JPN Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 2 laps
14 2 7 Carlos CHECA SPA Honda LCR HONDA3 laps
NOT CLASSIFIED
14 Randy DE PUNIET FRA Kawasaki Racing Team KAWASAKI 1 lap
56 Shinya NAKANO JPN Konica Minolta Honda HONDA 11 laps
4 Alex BARROS BRA Pramac d'Antin DUCATI 21 laps
46 Valentino ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team YAMAHA 25 laps
50 Sylvain GUINTOLI FRA Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 27 laps

For a full race report and results, get your copy of BikeSport News, on sale July 24