Casey Stoner won a dramatic Italian MotoGP on Sunday to end third-placed Valentino Rossi’s run of seven straight victories at Mugello.
Rossi has proved all but unbeatable on his home circuit, but both he and Fiat Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo made poor starts on a wet track.
Polesitter Lorenzo had to change bikes after crashing on his outlap and on the start his rear tire span and most of the grid passed him.
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Rossi also slipped back to fifth before working his way through the field after they changed to slicks as conditions improved. CNN
In a dramatic race that began in wet conditions, Stoner seized the advantage when switching bikes after 10 laps for a change of tyres.
“Once I got onto the slicks I found a good feeling immediately and I was able to get to the front quite quickly, but then I started having a problem with the clutch,” he said.
“It was a really hard race and I just wanted to finish it. I just tried to stay smooth and keep the same lap times even if I couldn?t ride the way I wanted to.”
Rossi blamed his team for making the wrong choice of tyre in the dry, going for the harder compound.
“It’s a precious result, it’s also nice to be on the podium. The race was really difficult, we knew the weather would be terrible,” he said.
“In the dry we made a mistake in going with the hard tyres. The choice of hards was made even though I wanted the soft ones.”
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Lorenzo said he was delighted with his finish having slid off on the warm-up lap and skidded at the start.
“Honestly, this is as good as a win for me and I can’t really believe the race today, it was like a movie,” he said.
“It’s a really amazing result because things could have been much worse today, so thank you again to everyone for making it possible. I’m really happy with this result.” AFP
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