It may have been a boring MotoGP race at Catalunya, but no one can find fault with Casey Stoner who completely dominated this Spanish round.
The Australian rider is now on a victory roll, very similar to his 2007 season with Ducati and seemingly unstoppable as he heads into next weekend’s Silverstone GP trailing points leader Jorge Lorenzo in the standings by just seven points.
Here’s what all the Honda riders had to say after the race.
Casey Stoner – 1st“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 [from the information displayed on his pit board] 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.
” Andrea Dovizioso – 4th“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 fourth, 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.
”Marco Simoncelli – 6th“I don’t know if I held the clutch too long at the start, but it slipped and a lot of riders passed me, costing me a lot of time.
After that I was unable to get back into the rhythm I had during practice and I was struggling, even though the pace in general was slower.
I had a gap of over a second to the guys in front of me and I got it back down to three tenths to Valentino, but after a few laps I was taking too many chances in certain areas where it was a little damp and decided to pull my oars in and bring the bike home.
Overall the weekend has been positive because after the pole yesterday sixth place doesn’t feel great but I have to think back to how I felt arriving here in Barcelona and be satisfied.
I achieved the first of my three objectives from yesterday, which was to finish, so we will try for the other two in the next race.
”Toni Elias – 13th“It was one of the worst races of my career because we could not even match yesterday’s lap times.
We probably took the wrong direction as we have lost front grip and rear grip was really poor for the whole race.
At the end we scored some points, but I feel bad for me, for the team and for my fans.
There’s something wrong and we need a radical change because we all deserve a better result.
We are working hard since the winter test and we will continue this way.
”Hiroshi Aoyama – DNF“It hasn’t been a good weekend for us and today I made a mistake.
I crashed and took de Puniet with me, but it was completely my fault.
I don’t know what to say other than I want to get to Silverstone and forget about this Grand Prix.
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