dimanche 14 août 2011

UPDATE 2-Motorcycling-Stoner cruises to win at Brno, widens lead

* Stoner takes sixth win in 11 races
* World champion Lorenzo fourth
By Jan Lopatka
BRNO, Czech Republic, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Australian Casey Stoner won the Czech motorcycling Grand Prix in on Sunday, extending his lead in the MotoGP championship following his win at the U.S. Grand Prix last month.
Italian Andrea Dovizioso came in second and his compatriot Marco Simoncelli finished third, his first podium finish in MotoGP, completing a clean sweep for Honda.
Stoner rider took an early lead and built up a 6.532 second advantage by the time he crossed the finish line, leaving champion Jorge Lorenzo and the rest of the field to scramble for second position.
Lorenzo, last year's winner in Brno, finished in fourth spot followed by fellow Yamaha rider Ben Spies of the United States. MotoGP great Valentino Rossi had more disappointment on his Ducati, coming home sixth.
It was Stoner's sixth triumph in this season's 11 races so far. Stoner leads the championship with 218 points, 32 ahead of Lorenzo.
Spaniard Dani Pedrosa, who started from pole position, crashed over the front end on a right curve early on, a blow to his chances of challenging in this year's championship.
Stoner said he was not too happy with the setup of his bike and was somewhat worried going into the race.
"It was not much better than in the qualifying, I just put in a heck of a lot more effort into the race than what I did in the practices. I did not have much confidence in the bike all weekend," he told reporters.
"We managed to make a gap after Dani crashed -- he would have been extremely competitive, he has been all weekend.
"That gave us the opportunity to make a break. Once we had that I made sure we kept the lap times up, made sure I stay nice and consistent and pulled away bit by bit. The bike by the end of the race was fantastic so we just brought it home."

SUNNY CONDITIONS
Lorenzo gained the lead in the first lap but 2007 champion Stoner soon took over to take the race in dry and sunny conditions in front of a crowd of 155,400 at the fast Masaryk Circuit.
Runner-up Dovizioso said Lorenzo may have made a mistake with his tyre choice.
"Lorenzo I think had a problem with the front end, he chose a soft tyre," he said.
"I am really happy with the result. I had a good start, I tried to cut Casey but I made a mistake. After that I just tried to manage Lorenzo and especially Simoncelli."
Simoncelli beamed after his premier podium finish.
"I made a great step this year, I have been a lot faster but results until now had been very similar. I had good opportunities but every time I missed them," he said.
Earlier, Italian Andrea Iannone took the Moto2 category win ahead of Spaniard Marc Marquez and Germany's Stefan Bradl.
Germany's Sandro Cortese won the 125cc race, followed by Johann Zarco of France and Spaniard Alberto Moncayo.
There are seven more events on the MotoGP Grand Prix calendar this season, with the next race in Indianapolis on Aug 28. (Editing by Mark Meadows)

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