The Repsol rider wins the fifth round of the season in style and is now seven points behind the leader of the class. Andrea Dovizioso finishes just outside the podium and is third of the World Championship
The Grand Prix of Catalunya saw again the best version of Casey Stoner. The Australian rider of the Repsol Honda Team dominated the practice sessions of the two first days and, although he had to yield “pole position” by only 16 thousandths, today prevailed again by achieving his third victory in only five races. A good weekend too for his team mate at the Repsol Honda Team, Andrea Dovizioso, who finished fourth, less than one second from the last podium position.
The race began with Casey Stoner defending tooth and nail his second starting position. After the first lap, the Australian launched his attack to the first position. A lap later, on the start/finish straight, Stoner was able to overtake Jorge Lorenzo and get the lead of the race.
From that moment on, the Repsol rider set a very fast pace that only Lorenzo was able to follow, and only until the fourth lap, where Stoner started to increase his rhythm setting two consecutive fastest laps, which finally allowed him to escape from the Spaniard. For the rest of the race, the Australian kept a searing pace that, lap after lap, allowed him to increase his advantage over the rest until crossing the finish line of the Catalunya Circuit in first position.
Andrea Dovizioso had a very different race. The Italian of the Repsol Honda Team had to fight his own battle for fourth position with his countryman Valentino Rossi where they traded position in several occasions during the first laps. Then Andrea increased his pace to get rid of his rival and rode alone for the rest of the race. The podium was close, as Spies was always within reach -at less than a second-, but finally he was not able to improve his fourth position, a valuable result that places him in the third position of the overall classification.
The World Championship does not rest and next weekend will take place at Silverstone the British Grand Prix, sixth round of the 2011 calendar.
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
4th at 5.255 sec.
“After the warm up session in the wet the conditions during the race were tricky, especially when it started to rain with 12 laps to go. I didn’t have a perfect start and this complicated the race. In the first laps with a full tank, I didn’t have good stability in the front. With the hard tyres the traction was not so good compared to Lorenzo, Spies and Rossi who were riding with soft tyres. Even if we improved compared to Le Mans in terms of lap times, I’m not happy finishing 4th position, five seconds behind the winner. Today we were fast and I think that with a good start we could have at least fought for the podium. I’m sorry for my team as they worked hard during the whole weekend. Now I look forward to next weekend’s race in Silverstone, a circuit that I like and where I hope to get a good result”.
Casey Stoner >> Audio
1st – 43:19.779
“We got a reasonably good start but not as good as Jorge. I wanted to try to pass him early on but had to wait until the end of the first lap. From this point I just tried to put in the consistent laps as we did in the practice sessions to see if he could stay with me, fortunately I was able to open up an advantage without pushing too hard or feeling too much pressure. I was really happy, the bike was feeling fantastic and then it started to rain. There was enough rain there to make you think that it will affect the bike, and in the last corner there was enough rain to make the track slippery. As I was always the first to arrive to the wet area of the track, I watched what the others were doing and if they had started to catch me then I would push and if I start to pull an advantage then I would back off a little. I’m just happy I kept the bike upright at this stage and I want to thank all my team at Repsol Honda for all the hard work this weekend. We now head to Silverstone next week where we’ll also be looking to fight for victory, I just hope Dani can make a return there also and I wish him a fast recovery”.
