Ducati Marlboro Team rider Casey Stoner scorched to his tenth victory of the year in faultless style at Sepang today, leading every one of the 21 laps and setting the new record on lap 15. His team-mate Loris Capirossi came home in 11th place.
Stoner got the holeshot from the front row of the grid and masterfully controlled the entire race, holding a slender lead over his pursuers Marco Melandri and Dani Pedrosa until he upped the pace and stretched his advantage. At one point he led by two seconds, finally crossing the line 1.7 seconds ahead. It was another remarkable performance from the World Champion who showed his mettle in sweltering hot and humid conditions.
Stoner's tenth success aboard his Desmosedici GP7 came one week after his home win in Australia which added the constructors' and teams' titles to the riders' title he secured in Japan last month. The Australian is also the only man to have scored in all 17 races so far.
Capirossi started from the fourth row of the grid and knew the race was going to be a tough challenge. He spent the closing stages battling with Alex Barros, just beating the Brazilian.
CASEY STONER, race winner, World Champion on 347 points
"The bike, the tyres and everything were performing really well but it was a very, very difficult race. The biggest battle I had was being out front by myself and not having anyone to focus on. I've been fine with it all year but this track seems to take it out of you a little bit more. Sometime after half-distance I had a couple of front-end loses, so I had to change my style a little bit, the way I was going into corners, to make sure I didn't lose the front any more. That took up a lot more of my energy and concentration, so it was quite hard to keep it up at the end. The reason the gap was going up and down so much was because I was trying to get a break for one lap, just to recover a little bit. Unfortunately I'd let them catch too much, so then I'd have to really concentrate for another lap which would take more of my energy away, so I think I'm very lucky and very happy to come out on top. Marco and Dani were fast right to the end, they were putting a lot of pressure on me and they never let me go. After I crossed the line I started to feel a bit dizzy, so it was definitely a hard race."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, 11th place, 7th in World Championship on 155 points
"I don't really know what happened today. It was a very tough race for me, and it's a shame because this is one of my favourite tracks and I came into this weekend from two very good races. Unfortunately our package didn't work as well today as it did in the previous races, we had some difficulties, so I was fighting with Barros for 11th place, which isn't the kind of result I was hoping for here. I hope things go better at Valencia."
LIVIO SUPPO, Ducati MotoGP project manager
"Casey was simply unbelievable once again, he rode a perfect race. He didn't push too hard at the beginning because he was using a medium rear while the other top Bridgestone guys had hard rears. He really used his head, the way he managed the race was incredible, the bike and the tyres worked well but for sure he is a genius. Loris had an up and down race and a good fight with Barros. That's 11 wins in 17 races from our team, a fantastic performance, so our thanks as always to our technical partners Bridgestone and Shell V-Power."
