Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner finishes third in Mugello despite leading the race – MotoGP news
Casey Stoner of the Repsol Honda team stood third on the podium at Mugello for the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM on Sunday.
The mid-season MotoGP event saw drastic lead changes in the final moments of the race.
The Aussie rider held the lead for almost the whole race, but in the final laps, his RCV lagged a little due to a tyre problem.
Stoner said, “I can't say I'm totally happy with the result, we started the race very strong and everything felt fantastic on the bike, however, we had a problem with the tyres after a few laps.”
At first, he lost the lead to Yamaha Factory Racing rider Jorge Lorenzo and then after a little battle, he was overtaken by his teammate Andrea Dovizioso.
Stoner said, “We believe this was related to incorrect tyre pressures for today's track temperature and we should have probably reduced them a little compared with what we used in warm up because as soon as the tyres got up to a certain pressure, I lost
all the grip in the rear and this led to me starting to close the front.”
In his opinion, the reason for his superb pace in the beginning was that the tyres were over pressured and it made it easier for the slicks to get warm instantly. Later, the same reason caused trouble for him and the tyres were over heated which caused them
to lose grip at the rear end.
Stoner was displeased with his third place finish, because the bike and rider combination was perfect to score a win for the day. After his tyre problem, Stoner still tried to push his RCV to re-engage himself in a battle with Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso.
Unfortunately, that was not possible and Lorenzo was steaming his M1 to vanish ahead.
After Lorenzo’s overtook him, his teammate Dovizioso closed in on him. Stoner struggled to keep up his pace but with no traction, at all he again lost the battle for a second place finish.
Although he still leads the 2011 MotoGP world championship table but he will have to keep winning races in order to stay there.
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