Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner wins 2011 US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca – MotoGP news
Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner won the 2011 MotoGP US Grand Prix held at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca circuit on Sunday, July 24, 2011.
The Aussie rider was not satisfied with his RCV setup until he made the last minute tweaks to it. The changes made for the warm up session were more promising than the whole weekend’s effort. The setup once again let Stoner top the warm up session.
Stoner said, “All weekend we've been struggling a little so we weren't too confident that we could run with Jorge and Dani in the race. However, this morning in warm up we found something I was a little happier with. Before the race I felt relaxed, confident
and generally calm, we started a little slower to get the tyres warm gently but also with a full tank of fuel, the bike didn't feel that great.”
Even in the last races at Mugello and Sachsenring, Stoner faced overheating issue of the tyres and lost pace in the final moments of the race.
In the US, he changed his strategy and gradually pushed his RC212V to slow the tyre warming process. Initially, Stoner was in pursuit behind teammate Dani Pedrosa and early race leader Jorge Lorenzo.
As the race went on, Stoner’s teammate, Dani Pedrosa fought to maintain his pace and started to lose time behind Jorge Lorenzo. Meanwhile Stoner throttled up his RC212V at ‘Corkscrew’ and overtook Pedrosa to claim the second place in the race.
After his first vital overtake in the race, he started to close in on Jorge Lorenzo. While Stoner was fighting for the first position in the race, Dani Pedrosa was gradually dropping further behind the top riders.
Stoner started his final conquest with Jorge Lorenzo and hung on the Spaniard’s tail to pressurise him and benefit from any mistakes he made. Finally, Stoner chose the moment and overtook Lorenzo while constantly opening the gap between him and Lorenzo.
Both Spaniards Lorenzo and Pedrosa finished at second and third positions respectively finishing the race weekend on a high.
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