Once again Casey Stoner (Nolan X-802) proved unbeatable achieving his 35th victory alongside his Pole Position advantage. Casey set an incredible pace from the first lap with Lorenzo (X-lite X-802) looking strong and not giving up so that he remained more or less a second off the Australian throughout the entire race. Alas there was nothing he could do as Casey, once again put in a perfect performance. The standings now see Stoner leading the championship with 66 points ahead of Lorenzo with 65.
Next race May 20 at Le Mans
CASEY STONER
"In the end it was another fantastic weekend for us. This morning we were more confident but also a little concerned because yesterday afternoon when we had a very similar setting to what we had in FP3 the bike was a bit worse in the warm conditions. In warm-up we didn't have a big problem with chatter, but in the race, in warmer conditions, we struggled a lot more. This was very difficult to ride with. In the first part of the race I was confident and attacking the track, but I almost lost the front twice due to the chatter. From this point I backed off a little, tried to stay smooth and just wanted to stay in front of Jorge and Dani, but Jorge was coming strong. I had to try and keep my pace and not make too many mistakes, so I was changing the mapping to try and reduce the chatter problem. Towards the end of the race I began to understand how to ride around it, this made things smoother and I found some more pace and was able to bring it home for a great race win."
JORGE LORENZO
"I'm happy with this second position because I was expecting to fight for third or fourth and not the victory. The bike improved a lot from the practices so it was possible. I had two problems, at the start I used a lot of clutch and burnt it so for two or three laps it was burning and I lost a lot of distance from Casey. Also at the end Casey was very strong. After this everything was working well and I made a fastest lap, which is not very common for me. We are just one point behind Casey, hopefully we can improve something on the bike tomorrow and be in front again."
SBK Monza:
Variable weather conditions affected the smooth running of the WSBK round in Italy with Race 1 cancelled and Race 2 stopped after only 8 laps with half points assigned. Race 2 saw Melandri come 4th, Checa 7th and Badovini 10th whilst Fabrizio was not even able to start due to problems with his bike in the Warm Up Lap.
It was a weekend with a great build-up but in reality little happened. WSBK rankings now see Checa 2nd and Melandri 4th and racing now moves on to Donington on 13th May.
