Honda’s Casey Stoner won his eighth race of the season in the Grand Prix of Aragon here on Sunday to extend his lead in the overall MotoGP standings. The Australian’s teammate Dani Pedrosa came in second at the Motorland circuit with reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo in third. Lorenzo is now lying 44 points adrift of Stoner, the 2007 champion with Ducati, in the 2011 title race with four legs of the season remaining. After adding another 25 points to his haul with only 100 points left the title is Stoner’s to lose. Stoner, who lost out to Lorenzo when setting off from pole only to finish third last time out in San Marino, told BBC Sport: “We’re pretty much back to our best. “It felt good all weekend. The bike has been fantastic and the only problem was the wind – it was changing direction and speed every lap so that was a challenge but I just had to bring it home. “It was my race to lose today and I did the job.”
Lorenzo said: “It was impossible to win today so third is not too bad. Casey was just too fast.” The race could not have gone more smoothly for the 25-year-old Stoner, who led at the end of the first lap and surged clear to comfortably beat Pedrosa. Behind Lorenzo in fourth came Maro Simoncelli with Ben Spies in fifth. Italian Andrea Dovizioso, lying third in the title race, failed to make it past the opening lap as he crashed out while Italian legend Valentino Rossi came in a disappointing 10th of the 13 finishers.
Stoner’s 31st MotoGP career victory placed him joint fifth on the all-time list, as he moved 44 points clear with just 100 points left to play for. Spanish riders may have missed out on the main race but they cleaned up in the lower divisions, with Marc Marquez winning the Moto2 race and Nicolas Terol prevailing in the 125cc. Suter rider Marquez beat home Italian duo Andrea Iannone (Suter) and Simone Corsi (FTR). This was last season’s 125cc world champion’s seventh success since moving up a division this season and it put him within six points of Germany’s Stefan Bradl in the overall Moto2 standings. Terol saw off France’s Johann Zarco on a Derbi and his compatriot and fellow Aprilia rider Maverick Vinales in third to take the 125 honours. This was Terol’s third consecutive win and the eighth of the season and it extended his lead over Zarco in the overal standings to 36 points.
