Casey Stoner piled the pressure on reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo with a second successive dominant victory in the 2011 MotoGP world championship in Catalunya yesterday.
Stoner’s third win of the campaign saw him cut Lorenzo’s lead to seven-points, with the Spaniard putting up a gallant fight in second position.
Lorenzo got the holeshot but was quickly passed by Stoner’s Repsol Honda RC212V machine as the Australian surged to his 26th MotoGP victory.
Stoner, who has now won three out of five races in 2011, said: "I got a reasonably good start but not as good as Jorge. I wanted to try to pass him early on but had to wait until the end of the first lap. From this point I just tried to put in the consistent laps as we did in the practice sessions to see if he could stay with me. Fortunately I was able to open up an advantage without pushing too hard or feeling too much pressure."
Stoner had little trouble streaking away from Lorenzo and his only nervous moments came when rain started to fall on lap 13.
He added: "The rain was only falling at the last three corners, but being the first one to arrive on track is always a perilous situation and Stoner said: "When you get an advantage in the race you don’t really want to go and put it in the gravel. I saw the white flags basically round the whole circuit but it was only really raining in the last section. It wasn’t nice seeing the spots and it doesn’t do a lot for your confidence, so I tried to back it off a little bit to see what everybody else thought of those flags and if they were going to keep pushing then so would I. It is definitely not the best to be first so I tried to pace myself against everybody else to make sure I didn’t take any risks."
Stoner now heads to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend chasing a hat-trick of wins for the first time in his HRC career.
He had a nightmare on Ducati’s GP10 at the Northamptonshire track a year ago and finished fifth.
But he’s confident he will be fighting for another win in Sunday’s race, which is the sixth round of the 2011 campaign and the second of a run of six races in eight weeks.
"Last year at Silverstone was a disastrous weekend; the bike just fell to pieces on the start with the clutch and wouldn't get off the line. I was bit worried the first couple of laps that there would be oil coming out of the clutch. But as I got going I was really fast but I started to get some arm pump and struggled although I set one of the fastest laps of the race towards the end.
"I was very happy from how far back I came last year so for this year I hope I don't have a start like I did last year and I think I can be pretty competitive there. The circuit is nice and the Honda works well there."
For a 24-page guide to the Silverstone MotoGP race, see the June 8 issue of Motor Cycle News. (Matthew Birt)
Source: http://www.motorcyclenews.com