Casey Stoner takes victory for Repsol Honda Team at Qatar GP – MotoGP news
Casey Stoner headed for the chickened flag for his first race with Repsol Honda Team at the Losail International Circuit, in Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar.
He had a real tough fight with his teammate Dani Pedrosa.
Jorge Lorenzo of Factory Yamaha Racing was the rider to separate the Repsol duo standing on the second step of podium at the finish.
Stoner finished with a lead of 3.440 seconds from Lorenzo, leaving Pedrosa on third place. Their third teammate Andrea Dovizioso was at fourth place with a high head of Repsol Honda Team. The new 2011 RC212V was again covering four places out of top-five.
Marco Simoncelli finished on the fifth place and as a fourth fastest rider on the Honda RC212V.
Stoner also lapped the fastest time with 1: 56.366 seconds on the clock on his 13th lap. After eight years Honda has won the season opener round last time was done by Valentino Rossi in 2003 at the Suzuka circuit.
Stoner has a number of great jobs done at the Losail circuit, having three consecutive wins 2007, 2008, 2009. This was also claimed to be the 31st win of the career and 24th in MotoGP premier class.
The riders paid tribute to the victims of earthquake at Japan, by observing a minute of silence. The earthquake followed by tsunami hit Japan on March 11, just before the final pre-season test held at Losail circuit. The Japanese Grand Prix has also
been moved to October 2 from April 24.
The race was held under the most favourable conditions at the desert track, as previously the final pre season test and the Free Practice sessions were stuck by the desert storms leaving sand on the track and making it more difficult for the riders
to set the pace. But still the race was a close title fight.
Pedrosa swept into lead at the starting laps of the race, but after some while reigning world champion was the man to lead the race. By then race was seeing a tug of war between two Spaniards and Casey Stoner, where finally Repsol Honda, with Stoner
on it stole the scene.
At several times Stoner and Pedrosa switched leads but by the mid way of 22-lap race Stoner galloped his RCV to increase the gap between him and the second runner. This resulted in the fight was left between Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa, the rivals
for 2010 championship, but the Factory Yamaha rider scored second place at the podium with 20 points in his hand.
In the fight for fourth place Dovizioso and Simoncelli were neck to neck. But the Repsol rider, Dovizioso finished at fourth place followed by Marco Simoncelli at fifth place. Dovizioso was 5.942 seconds off the leader’s pace.
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