Stoner Takes Commanding Win at Assen
Casey Stoner gave himself, Ducati and Bridgestone a first premier class Assen victory with a superb breakaway from pole.
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 Casey Stoner gave himself, Ducati and Bridgestone a first premier class Assen victory with a superb breakaway from pole. It would have taken a brave man to bet against him achieving a second consecutive victory after his phenomenal form in practice, qualifying and the Saturday warmup, and the Australian set out his stall early in Assen. The circuit record was passed over to the Ducati Marlboro rider after just two laps, and he improved gradually as the race went on to take the win. Stoner´s task was made slightly easier by the absence of Valentino Rossi from the battle for supremacy, the Fiat Yamaha rider crashing on the opening lap after losing the back end of his bike and careering into Randy de Puniet. Rossi returned to action, at times bettering the pace of the frontrunners with the exception of Stoner, but even if he had stayed on track the 2007 World Champion would almost undoubtedly have proved too fast to catch. Dani Pedrosa was also unable to prevent a second Stoner breakaway in as many races, the Repsol Honda rider going round in isolation after being passed for the lead by his rival. Second place –combined with Rossi´s misfortunes- puts the Spaniard into the lead in the World Championship. As at last year´s race in the Netherlands, the A-Style TT Assen was set to be Nicky Hayden´s return to the podium in 2008. Untroubled by other riders whilst unable to keep up with the man immediately in front, it had looked to be a cruise to the line for the former World Champion and Assen racewinner. However, in an almost tragicomic turn of events, the pneumatic valve engine-shod RC212V used by the Honda factory rider gave up on him at the last moment, and he could only limp over the line in fourth as Colin Edwards took a second podium of the year. Having started from the second row, dropped down the field and then made a comeback demonstrating his skills at Assen, Tech3 Yamaha satellite rider Edwards went some way to putting his Assen demons to rest. Having lost out in a 2006 to Hayden on the last lap, passing his rival on the home straight was a sweet reward for the `Texas Tornado´. Andrea Dovizioso benefitted the most from some hard overtaking moves from Jorge Lorenzo, which broke up a tussle for fifth place. The JiR Team Scot rider eventually took the spot ahead of his Spanish rival, with Chris Vermeulen and Shinya Nakano losing ground. There were crashes for Kawasaki´s Anthony West and San Carlo Honda Gresini rider Alex de Angelis in the race, whilst early faller Rossi managed to pass both Marco Melandri and subsequently Toni Elias for eleventh place. Casey Stoner – Race Winner "We´ve known that we had the pace to do it, bcoming to race day it kind of makes you even more nervous knowing that the only thing that can go wrong is you! It managed to stay dry for the race, and I´m happy with that. Valentino´s crash was unfortunate, I don’t want anybody to crash so that I can win points advantages that way, but I´ve had some bad luck too this year. The team have done a great job this weekend." 250cc Alvaro Bautista won out in a two rider battle for victory in the 250cc A-Style TT Assen, imposing his will on Thomas Luthi and winning from pole position. The Spaniard didn´t have the best of starts in the Netherlands, and on the opening lap he had dropped down to eighth place, the superior drive of his Mapfre Aspar Aprilia machinery later bringing him back into contention. He reeled in Thomas Luthi after the Swiss rider had broken free from the pack, with the definitive pass coming on the nineteenth lap. Bautista then extended his advantage over the Emmi-Caffe Latte man to 4.5 seconds before taking the chequered flag and his second win of 2008. Luthi could not be too disappointed, having achieved his best ever 250cc result. Marco Simoncelli was again on the podium, for the fifth race in succession. He came out worst from a first corner lack of space, running onto the rumble strip and dropping down places, but fought his way back to the rostrum and cut the World Championship gap between himself and leader Mika Kallio to a solitary point. Alex Debon and Hector Barbera also featured in the top six, having both run off at the De Bult asphalted section of the track. Barbera´s rejoining the action nearly took out Kallio, who was later overtaken by the pair and the Finn´s Red Bull KTM teammate Hiroshi Aoyama. Yuki Takahashi, Roberto Locatelli and Julian Simon completed the top ten, whilst the only title contender to crash out was Mattia Pasini on lap eleven. 125cc 125cc World Champion Gabor Talmacsi held his nerve over a five-lap sprint to take his first victory of 2008, in a lower cylinder category race that had everything. The Hungarian had come from thirteenth on the grid for the win, aided when on lap ten a red flag was shown to signal a restart under wet conditions. This bunched up the field, but by no means meant that the Bancaja Aspar rider had an easy ride. Over the handful of remaining laps, he fought tooth and nail with a multitude of rivals before winning out in a breathtaking time round the Assen circuit. It is the first win in the class since Malaysia 2007. On the last lap the lead and podium places changed with wilful abandon, with Belson Derbi´s Joan Olive once again heartbreakingly close to a first Grand Prix victory. The Spaniard had been a consistent force in the Dutch date, always amongst the frontrunners and starting from second after the restart. Second in the World Championship, poleman Simone Corsi took the final podium place after his own late push for victory, the Jack&Jones WRB rider completing a rostrum separated by just 0.255. Emmi-Caffe Latte´s Sandro Cortese came home fourth whilst Bradley Smith experienced a comparative let-off for fifth. However, whilst at the last split race in Le Mans he had experienced a disastrous start before being given a second opportunity by the rain, in Assen he benefitted from a red flag shown just seconds after he had crashed from the lead spot. The top ten was completed by Repsol KTM´s last lap race leader Esteve Rabat, still-World Championship leader Mike di Meglio and the trio of Andrea Iannone, Nico Terol and Raffaele de Rosa. The five-lap shootout had an adjusted grid to that of the order to pass the finish line on lap nine (when the decision was made to bring the riders in) with two crashers unable to return to action. Blusens Aprilia´s Efren Vazquez was unable to assume his place on the front row after crashing his only bike just seconds after Smith´s tumble, whilst Marc Marquez was ruled out of the restart for having returned to the pit lane without his bike following his own fall. MotoGP - Assen Race Result Pos - Rider - Team - Time 1 - Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro Team - 42'12.337 2 - Dani Pedrosa - Repsol Honda - 42'23.647 3 - Colin Edwards - Yamaha Tech3 - 42'29.462 4 - Nicky Hayden - Repsol Honda - 42'32.814 5 - Andrea Dovizioso - JIR Honda Scot - 42'39.683 6 - Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha - 42'40'945 7 - Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP - 42'44'667 8 - Shinya Nakano - Honda San Carlo - 42'47.229 9 - James Toseland - Yamaha Tech3 - 42'50.903 10 - Sylvain Guintoli  - Alice Ducati - 42'51.154 11 - Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha - 42'58.362 12 - Toni Elias - Alice Ducati - 43'00.550 13 - Marco Melandri - Ducati Marlboro Team - 43'11.931 Not Classified - Randy De Puniet - Honda LCR - Alex De Angelis - Honda San Carlo - Anthony West - Team Kawasaki Championship Points 1 - Dani Pedrosa - 171 2 - Valentino Rossi - 167 3 - Casey Stoner - 142 4 - Jorge Lorenzo - 114 5 - Colin Edwards - 98 6 - Andrea Dovizioso - 79 7 - Nicky Hayden - 70 8 - James Toseland - 60 9 - Chris Vermeulen - 57 10 - Shinya Nakano - 57 11 - Loris Capirossi - 51 12 - Toni Elias - 33 13 - John Hopkins - 32 14 - Marco Melandri - 32 15 - Alex De Angelis - 25 16 - Sylvain Guintoli  - 24 17 - Randy De Puniet - 22 18 - Anthony West - 16 19 - Ben Spies - 2 20 - Tadayuki Okada - 2
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