Casey Stoner, during the Australia Grand Prix at Phillip Island, silenced any of his final critics taking his third win of this season, more than five months from his last, and winning his home race for the third year in a row, which also took him to third in the championship standings.
It was Dani Pedrosa that got the hole shot with Casey Stoner, with his special one off livery, hot on his tail and Valentino Rossi following, while Jorge Lorenzo taking off from fourth, crashed out at the first turn.
Lorenzo was passed by both Nicky Hayden and Mika Kallio and going wide lost control of his M1, clipped Hayden, who managed to stay on his Ducati and return to the race.
Lorenzo would end up with a broken pinky finger, a scraped nose and giving Valentino Rossi at 38 point lead in the standings.
Stoner took the lead from Pedrosa on the second lap after exchanging paint a pair of times then Rossi overtook Pedrosa who would eventually fall to third and a massive 22.
618s from Stoner.
Rossi would follow Stoner for the rest of race looking like he could overtake the Aussie rider, but would finally settle for second place and crossed the finish line 1.
935s behind the Aussie rider.
The two fastest riders on track would give us a show that we hadn’t seen in a long, long time, some fantastic slides.
Alex de Angelis rode to an excellent fourth place that may convince the government of San Marino to back him for a MotoGP ride in Team Scot.
Colin Edwards took another solid fifth place from fifth on the grid, and Andrea Dovizioso still suffering from food poisoning and the flu was sixth.
Marco Melandri was seventh after an interesting battle with Randy de Puniet who came in eighth.
Mika Kallio finished ninth and Toni Elias closed out the top ten.
Chris Vermeulen took eleventh, while Loris Capirossi was demoted to the back of the grid from his 13th qualifying place for having used up his allotted amount of engines according to the new regulations, came in 12th.
Suzuki recevied a 10 penalty deduction on the constructors championship.
Gabor Talmacsi was 13th and James Toseland was 14th after receiving a jump start penality and ride through, that the Brit indicated that he didn’t deserve.
Nicky Hayden after being sent for a ride through the gravel trap by Lorenzo was 15th, lapped and last.
MotoGP Phillip Island Race Results – Round 15: 1 Casey STONER Ducati 40′56.
651 2 Valentino ROSSI Yamaha +1.
935 3 Dani PEDROSA Honda + 22.
618 4 Alex DE ANGELIS Honda + 32.
702 5 Colin EDWARDS Yamaha +35.
885 6 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Honda + 38.
482 7 Marco MELANDRI Kawasaki/Hayate +44.
461 8 Randy DE PUNIET Honda + 44.
941 9 Mika KALLIO Ducati + 54.
345 10 Toni ELIAS Honda +1′01.
205 11 Chris VERMEULEN Suzuki + 1′05.
417 12 Loris CAPIROSSI Suzuki + 1′05.
950 13 Gabor TALMACSI Honda + 1′17.
951 14 James TOSELAND Yamaha +1′17.
985 15 Nicky HAYDEN Ducati lappedDNF : Jorge LorenzoDNS: Niccolò Canepa
