2008 MotoGP Championship - Brno, Czech Republic

Text and Photos Courtesy MotoGP, Ducati Corse, Kawasaki, Suzuki Racing, Yamaha Racing and World Superbike.  Edited by webBikeWorld.com staff.

More:  Qualifying (Below)  |  Race Preview (Below)

Race Results
Valentino Rossi moved two races clear at the top of the championship with his fifth win of the season at Brno, enjoying an easy ride home after his closest rival Casey Stoner crashed out on lap seven.

Rossi, starting from second, lost some time at the first corner getting past John Hopkins.

For the first couple of laps Stoner looked in danger of clearing off, but the Italian soon found his rhythm and was gradually making up time on the Australian when he saw him slide off into the gravel.

The pair had already opened out an impressive gap from the chasing pack and Rossi was left to race the remaining 15 laps alone and unchallenged, eventually coming home 15 seconds clear of Toni Elias.

The seven-time world champion's 67th premier-class victory takes him within one race of the all-time premier-class record, held by his compatriot Giacomo Agostini.

Rossi is now 50 points clear of Stoner with Pedrosa 15 points off in third, whilst Lorenzo's six points see him remain fourth in the standings, ten points ahead of Andrea Dovizioso.

Valentino Rossi - Position: 1; Time: 43'28.841:  "I was confident today because my bike was fast from Friday practice, and with Jeremy we made a small modification to the front after warm-up to allow me to be a bit faster in some sections, and it worked very well. 

I lost about half a second getting past Hopkins at the start and Casey was incredibly fast at that stage, like he'd already done ten laps!  For a short time I was worried but then, after two laps, I understood that my bike was working very well and that I was fast enough to try to catch him.

I had closed a little bit already and gradually the red bike was becoming a bit bigger in front of me, and I think this is when he started to push harder and made his mistake.  I was anticipating a very hard battle if I did catch him, so when I saw the red bike slide out I could hardly believe it - this made things a lot easier for me!

After that I just enjoyed riding my bike; my Bridgestone tires worked very well until the end and my M1 felt very good.  Of course I can't count this as a complete victory because Casey fell, and I am sorry for him, but this is racing and I have to be happy with this result.

We are 50 points clear which is a lot and I am very excited to be going to Misano in this situation.  However we know that 50 points is still not always enough when you have someone as strong as Casey and so we won't relax.  Now we have two days of testing and we will try some new electronics in order to help me open the throttle earlier and also, of course, test some Bridgestone tires."

Ducati Team Report
Casey Stoner was unable to turn his sixth successive pole position into a podium today when he relinquished a one-second advantage over Valentino Rossi and crashed out of the twelfth round of the season at Brno. 

It is the first time the reigning World Champion has not made it to the checkered flag after thirty races, since signing for Ducati at the start of 2007, and it leaves him 50 points behind the Italian rider with six races remaining.

Marco Melandri, who started from the fourth row of the grid, put together an impressive charge through the field to finish in seventh place - his second best result of the season.

Following the Czech Republic Grand Prix, Ducati moved up to second in the constructors' championship at the expense of Honda thanks to a fantastic podium for Toni Elias, who came from the penultimate row of the grid to finish second.

Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro Team) DNF:  "Obviously we are all disappointed with this result because our pace in practice was good, everything went very well this morning and we felt we could push out in front.

Things were going according to plan until the crash.  I was doing the same lap time over and over and I was quite happy with the pace I was running.  The crash came out of the blue, that corner was an easy one but I lost the front and it happened very quickly, very suddenly and I didn't manage to save it.

It's a hard one to explain and we will look at the data but sometimes this kind of crash happens at this level of racing and it was my mistake!  We knew that we needed to win this race - and more - in order to close down Valentino's advantage so this makes the championship very difficult for us.

Anything can happen in racing but fifty points is a big gap against such a strong and consistent competitor.  Anyway I never throw in the towel, nor does anybody at Ducati, and we will keep fighting until the end.  Misano is a home race for the factory and there will be lots of Ducatisti there, so my main thought now is to stay positive and bounce back with a good show for them in two weeks' time".

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