Casey Stoner celebrates maiden victory at Le Mans - MotoGP News
The Repsol Honda rider, Casey Stoner celebrated his second victory of the 2011 MotoGP season in the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France and first at the legendry Bugatti circuit in Le Mans, in any category.
While speaking to reporters after the Grand Prix, Stoner said about his victorious performance, “The whole weekend has gone so well for us, arriving here from the Portugal test with the bike almost the same and we have improved small things here and there
and only needed to adjust the set up for this circuit.”
A fight for the second place was going on between Dani Pedrosa and Marco Simoncelli. Both riders were caught in a neck-to-neck battle and Simoncelli edged past the Spaniard ever so slightly. Pedrosa though, didn’t give up and tailed the Italian until he
got his second place back.
The race saw a disastrous incident when Simoncelli tried to overtake Pedrosa on the last turn of the track. In doing so, he collided with Pedrosa’s bike sending the Spaniard crashing out of the race. Pedrosa as a result, not only earned his first DNF status
of the season, but was left with a broken collar bone. Meanwhile, the culprit of the act, Simoncelli was handed a ‘ride through’ penalty and dropped three places to finish 5th.
The race leader for most of the laps, Stoner admitted that it was hard to pass Pedrosa because of the consistent pace maintained by him.
Stoner added, “When I overtook him I thought I might be able to take some advantage but he was able to match my times and follow me for some laps, so I continued to push more than I prefer too and eventually I put a gap between us.”
The final laps of the French GP were amazing, showing a tug of war between Dovizioso and Rossi. Behind them was Jorge Lorenzo, who kept up his momentum to catch the Ducati rider for a fourth place finish. The fall of Dani Pedrosa forced the fighting trio
to run for the second and third place on the podium.
In the end, it was Stoner who finished the race at first place, leaving second-placed Dovizioso 14 seconds behind him. Valentino Rossi followed in third, making his first podium finish for Ducati.
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