Casey Stoner Wins at Mugello

Casey Stoner once again managed to judge racing conditions and the reaction of his sportbike to the track to perfection to produce a complicated, yet ruthlessly professional display of sportbike racing and take the victory in the Gran Premio d’Italia Alice held at the Mugello circuit in Italy on Sunday. This was the second straight flag-to-flag victory in two rounds of the MotoGP, which also gave Ducati their first victory at Mugello, and ended Valentino Rossi’s streak of consecutive wins at this Italian circuit.

Casey Stoner takes the lead in the points race

The majority of the race was determined by strategy as the crowd of 80,000 sportbike fans once again watched as the race started on a wet surface and was finished on slicks. Casey Stoner timed his tire change perfectly and raced out of the pit to take the lead until the last lap, when he had to survive a scare. He made a critical error coming into Correntai corner in front of thousands of his Italian fans, but managed to keep his bike under control as he came out of the corner. At the same time his clutch started to act-up, which he managed to overcome to win by a second over former point’s leader Jorge Lorenzo, who Stoner overtook for the points lead with this victory.

Jorge Lorenzo had an excellent race after a crash in the sighting lap that left him shaken, but was just beaten to the line by a second. This result should still leave him confident heading to the next race and hopefully we’ll see a three or four way competition for the championship this year.

Valentino Ross, Lorenzo’s Fiat Yamaha colleague, took third place and must feel slightly disappointed after this result ended his seven year reign at his beloved home circuit. He finished the race two seconds behind Stoner and just one tenth of a second in front of Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso. Disappointment, once again, for Dovizioso, who finished fourth after leading the race early on, just off the podium.

Monster Yamaha 3 racer Colin Edwards out raced his teammate James Toseland to take sixth, LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet took eighty, Niccolo Canepa of Pramac racing took ninth, and the top ten was round out by Chris Vermeulen of Rizla Suzuki.

The local time schedule for the next race at Catalunya is listed below.

Friday, 12 June 2009

125 FP1      12:40 – 13:40

MotoGP FP1    13:55 – 14:55

250 FP1        15:10 – 16:10

Saturday, 13 June 2009

125 FP2      09:00 – 9:40

MotoGP FP2       9:55 – 10:55

250 FP2      11:10 – 12:10

125 QP     13:00 – 13:40

MotoGP QP     13:55 – 14:55

250 QP       15:10 – 15:55

Sunday, 14 June 2009

125 WUP          08:40 – 9:00

250 WUP          09:10 – 09:30

MotoGP WUP     09:40 – 10:00

“Image: Newscom”