Casey Stoner finished third today at Brno behind race winner Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa to extend his run of podium finishes to five and move himself up to third place in the MotoGP World Championship standings.
Nicky Hayden battled through the pain of a chipped radius bone, sustained in a crash at the end of qualifying practice yesterday afternoon, to cross the line in an impressive sixth place.
Overnight storms and light rain showers this morning had left the track damp for warm-up but the sun emerged in the afternoon to ensure the Czech Republic Grand Prix took place in ideal weather conditions, even though grip levels were lower than they had been for the past two days here.
The Ducati Marlboro Team will be back on track tomorrow for a demanding day of testing, with Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden both scheduled to try some technical updates.
CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) 3rd
“To be honest I can’t be completely happy with this result, even though it is always good to be on the podium. Towards the end of qualifying yesterday we thought we had found a good way forward with the setting but we needed to finalise it in the warm-up this morning and we didn’t get chance because of the rain. I was struggling with the front for the first few laps and lost too much ground on the two leaders. It looked like there were other guys having similar problems to me and I saw Dovi crash right in front of me. Things improved towards the end but I was too far from Dani and Jorge to trouble them. We have work to do but we’re not too far off and I am desperate to fight for victories again – for myself and for Ducati.”
NICKY HAYDEN – (Ducati Marlboro Team) 6th
“Taking everything into consideration I have to be happy with sixth place – our pace wasn’t bad and looking at the lap times I could have maybe been fighting for a higher position if I was fully fit. When Valentino passed me I managed to stay with him for a while but couldn’t hang on and just had to focus on keeping a pace that allowed me to bring some good points home. I want to thank the team because they made some changes to the bike to give me better grip in the left-hand corners and it worked. Once the race started and the adrenaline kicked in I couldn’t really feel the pain in my hand but I suddenly started to feel it as soon as I crossed the line. The thing I’m most worried aboutis if I can test tomorrow because it’s going to be a really important session for us.”
VITTORIANO GUARESCHI Team Manager
“This is another positive result for the team even though, to be honest, before we came here I was hoping for better considering our constant improvements over the past few races. Qualifying was more difficult than we expected and Nicky had to ride with an injury that we thought would make it impossible for him to finish sixth and to set such good lap times. Casey had made some good progress at the end of the session yesterday but the overnight rain affected the track conditions and he wasn’t as confident with the front, at least not at the start. Anyway, we’re back on the podium for the fifth race in a row.”
Circuit Record: Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha – 2009), 1’56.670 – 166.716 Km/h
Best Pole: Valentino Rossi (Yamaha – 2009), 1’56.145 – 167.469 Km/h
