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FAULTLESS STONER DOMINATES LAGUNA |
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Monday, 23 July 2007 |
FAULTLESS STONER DOMINATES LAGUNA
Ducati Team rider Casey Stoner unleashed a faultless display of riding
at Laguna Seca this afternoon to win his sixth victory of the year and
extend his World Championship lead to 44 points. The Australian grabbed
the lead after the first few corners of the first lap and was never
challenged from there, running away from the pack to win by an emphatic
9.865 seconds. Today's victory followed a similarly faultless two days
of practice and qualifying - Stoner topped all five pre-race sessions
aboard his awesome Desmosedici GP7. Stoner's weekend-long domination
also made him the first rider to win a MotoGP race from pole position
in 13 events. The last man to score pole and race victory was Loris
Capirossi on his Ducati at last September's Japanese Grand Prix.
Capirossi
was out of luck at Laguna today. The Italian, who finished second in
last Sunday's German GP, had qualified strongly on the second row of
the grid but withdrew form the US GP after the first few laps with a
technical fault.
MotoGP now commences its traditional summer
recess with Ducati leading the riders', constructors' and teams' World
Championships. The sport reconvenes at Brno for the Czech GP on August
17/18/19.
CASEY STONER, winner, World Championship leader on 221 points
"This
would have to be my best racing weekend ever. We also had a great
weekend at the Sachsenring last week, it just didn't work out in the
race. Today everything was perfect, the tyres, the bike, everything was
working great the whole weekend. We managed to be fast in every session
and after all this hard work we did it in the race. We also broke the
long run of no pole sitter winning a race - the last person to do it
was on a Ducati and the next person to do it was on a Ducati. I'm
absolutely stoked about this race. We went out in morning warm-up and
we were able to do really low 22s and even high 21s with half race
distance on the tyres, so we felt pretty confident. At the start of the
race I dipped into the 22s, I wanted to see how fast everybody else
could go. I was pulling away from Dani [Pedrosa] by about half second
lap, then Chris [Vermeulen] got in front of him and started to chase me
down. I thought he was obviously pushing a bit harder so I decided to
up my pace and I was slowly but surely pulling a gap. Chris was very
fast, but I feel like I had a little bit better rear tyre, we had
selected a pretty hard rear which really started working towards the
end, so I just continued to push throughout the race. I didn't think
there was going to be a big group at the front, I knew we had the
set-up and it was just a matter of everything going to plan for us with
no bad luck and everything worked."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, DNF, 8th in World Championship on 77 points
"The
weekend had been going very well, so I'm sad not to finish the race. In
morning warm-up we were faster than yesterday so I was confident I
could have a good race. Casey and Chris were very fast but I believe I
could have fought for another podium finish. After a couple of laps the
gearbox stuck in second gear and that was that. It seems like it was
only a tiny little fault, but sometimes things like that can happen in
racing."
LIVIO SUPPO, Ducati MotoGP project manager
"We
are so happy for Casey today because once again he dominated the
weekend and today he got the victory he deserved. He has been
incredibly fast all weekend. Bridgestone gave us fantastic tyres, but
it was Casey who made the difference today, he finished almost ten
seconds ahead of the next guy, who was also on Bridgestones. We are
very, very sorry for Loris. For sure he could have ridden another great
race, but he was stopped by a broken gear lever return spring. Now we
go into the summer break - it's great for us to go into the break ahead
in the three championships, so we can relax a bit before coming back
next month. As always, a big thank you to our technical partners
Bridgestone and Shell Advance."
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