Le Mans MotoGP: Casey Stoner hails ‘fantastic’ win

Casey Stoner returned to winning ways in emphatic fashion in yesterday’s French MotoGP race as a dominant performance saw him halve Jorge Lorenzo’s world championship lead.

Stoner went into the 28-lap race with a 24-point disadvantage on the Spaniard but he left France just 12-points off the series lead following a crushing victory.

Once the 2007 world champion had fought his way by Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa on the second lap, Stoner barely put a foot wrong to end a weekend he dominated in impressive fashion.

The only real concern for the former factory Ducati rider was an overheating clutch on the startline and he said: “People were still on the grid and started to get a little hot. I couldn’t get it into neutral and when I went to start the race it was already too hot and I made a terrible start. I was pretty aggressive in the first couple of turns and got most of my positions back and was following Dani. He was riding pretty well but very conservative on the left side with the cold tyre.”

“My tyre felt like it wasn’t too bad and he was a little slower than me mid-turn. I really wanted to get by but he was always stopping the bike in the middle of the corner. Once I got by Dani I wanted to pull a gap but he immediately matched whatever pace I did, so every time I went a bit faster he’d do the same. He kept matching my pace and I got to a pace and thought ‘this is more than I want to push with a full fuel tank.’

But I stayed at that pace for a few laps and Dani kept staying there. I started to take a bit of an advantage and from that moment the race became a lot easier and I could take some more advantage without pushing so hard. It was a fantastic weekend all round. We more or less came here with the same set-up as Portugal and just made a few little changes. We got the closest to the perfect set-up and this is what allowed us to win the race.”

Stoner said he was surprised that he had not come under more of a threat from Jorge Lorenzo and factory Yamaha YZR-M1. Yamaha was unbeaten at the famous Bugatti circuit for the last three years but Lorenzo was blown away by Stoner all weekend and he added: “They say they have improvements from last year but I don’t think they really improved from the lap times of last year, so there is something strange there. It’s not that their bike went backwards and others forwards, they have actually gone slower at some tracks.”

“I have no doubt that Jorge is fast enough to win races. You don’t need all the other Yamahas up front to say it’s a good bike, you only need one rider to do this and Jorge is strong enough.  I have no doubt at the next races he’ll be strong, this was just a strange weekend for him.”

For a full round-up of news from Le Mans, see this Wednesday’s issue of MCN.