The top three finishers from the Australian Grand Prix, from left: Valentino Rossi, second; Casey Stoner, winner; and Nicky Hayden, third. All three riders are MotoGP World Champions.

Australian GP Race Report

By Paul Kelly
redbullindianapolisgp.com

Monday, October 6, 2008

RESULTS

PHILLIP ISLAND, Australia - Results of the 27-lap Australian Grand Prix race, with position, rider, country, motorcycle/tire, time behind winner:

Fastest lap: Hayden, 1:30.059, Lap 3

Pole lap: Stoner, 1:28.665

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POINTS

Riders: Rossi 332, Stoner 245, Pedrosa 209, Lorenzo 182, Dovizioso 145, Hayden 131; Edwards 126, Vermeulen 118, Nakano 106, Capirossi 102, Toseland 100, Elias 91, Guintoli 60, de Angelis 55, de Puniet 54, Melandri 51, Hopkins 50, West 46, Ben Spies 20, Jamie Hacking 5, Tadayuki Okada 2.

Manufacturers: Yamaha 361, Ducati 286, Honda 275, Suzuki 165, Kawasaki 81.

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PODIUM QUOTES 

CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team Ducati/Bridgestone, winner): "This weekend has been a bit like the whole season - up and down! Thankfully, it's finished on a high, and it's a great feeling to win my home Grand Prix in front of all these wonderful fans, with my family here, too. That's largely down to the hard work of my team because we've had some issues with the bike here, but today it felt great and I was able to push hard from the first lap. Sometimes at this track you can have the best pace but still get dragged into a battle, but I was able to get away, even though Nicky chased me hard for a long time before eventually dropping off and giving me some breathing space. It's been a great year for me, and even though we haven't won the title, I feel proud of our achievements. If we can battle for the championship again next year, that would be great. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy winning my home GP." 

VALENTINO ROSSI (Fiat Yamaha Team Yamaha/Bridgestone, second): "That was a very exciting race for me, from start to finish! Unfortunately, I made a small mistake yesterday, and I paid a high price for it - both with my starting position and with my body. This morning my neck was OK, but I had a lot of pain in my head, so I have to say thank you to Dr. Costa and the Clinica Mobile because they gave me a lot of massage and some medicine, and I was in better shape for the race. I got a good start, and I was lucky to miss de Angelis by just a couple of centimeters, and then I arrived to Lorenzo and Toseland. The first time I passed James, I thought I would be able to go, but then he passed me back and I realized that his pace was not so bad, and we had a great battle. He was very strong and difficult to pass, but once I did get by I was able to go, and then I just kept pushing and gradually Nicky got bigger and bigger. It was fun to keep fighting until the last lap, and I am very happy with this second position because it's always a great emotion to be on the podium here. With Casey as strong as he was, I think this was the best we could have done today, and I really enjoyed the race." 

NICKY HAYDEN (Repsol Honda Team Honda/Michelin, third): "We got a really good start, and I thought was going to lead. Things felt pretty good early on. I went a lot faster in the race than I went all weekend. The bike and everything was working pretty good, so I was able to stay with Casey for a while. I felt comfortable there. Then once he started to pull away, I had some issues. I couldn't keep the corner speed I had early on. I enjoyed the race. It was a lot of fun. Riding this track for 27 laps is quite intense; you don't realize how fast you're going around here. It was a good battle at the end. Valentino started coming for me, I started to ride a little harder, but I ended up going a little slower. I tried to stay wheels in line as best I could and hold him off. But I didn't get off the last corner great going into the last lap. Coming down the start-finish, I saw him on the big TV screen out of the corner of my eye, so I knew it was going to be tough. There wasn't much I could do; I didn't have much tire left. Nonetheless, it's cool to be on the podium. My Michelin guys wanted me to run a harder tire. I did the sighting lap on that tire, put back in my original choice for the race. The warm-up was really good; it was nice to get some heat in there. It got a little loose at the end, but it was fun. A big thanks to my team and to all my fans for sticking with me."

OTHER AMERICAN RIDER QUOTES 

COLIN EDWARDS (Tech 3 Yamaha Yamaha/Michelin, eighth): "I got a really good start, and I thought I could hang in with the battle for third and fourth, but pretty much from the first couple of laps I knew it was going to be a really difficult race. I couldn't even keep them close to me because I couldn't get in the corner and I couldn't get out of the corners. Quite early on, I had a moment on the front end and that hadn't happened all weekend. After that, I just couldn't push, and I just stayed at the same pace. I couldn't really do more than a (1:) 31.5, and it didn't matter what I did - I kept falling back. Right at the end, I could see de Puniet was running into a few problems with his rear tire, and I was slowly reeling him back in. I managed to pass him and make it stick. It is severely disappointing because I really believed that I could run up close to the podium today. I was riding really hard, so to finish eighth is frustrating. I felt like I was on the absolute limit at the pace I was running, and it wasn't good enough. This isn't the way I wanted to celebrate my 100^th Grand Prix, but congratulations to James. He rode a great race, and I'll be looking for a lot more in Malaysia." 

JOHN HOPKINS (Kawasaki Racing Team Kawasaki/Bridgestone, 13^th): "At the start of the race, I was just dodging and weaving my way around all of the crashes, but we managed to make up quite a few places by going around the outside of some of the other riders in the opening laps. I settled into a rhythm and tried to keep in touch with the group ahead, but a few laps in, I lost the front at Honda corner and ran wide, which cost me a few positions. It was then basically a race with Anthony (West), and we did the best we could with what we had. He just had a little more drive out of the turns and was able to stay ahead, but we were both particularly struggling on the final turn of the circuit. I could see that Chris Vermeulen was catching us toward the end of the race, so we just pushed as hard as we could to maintain our position. I'm looking forward to the next round because we had a positive preseason test at the Sepang circuit, and hopefully we can gain a better result there."

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MotoGP SUPPORT CLASS WINNERS 

250cc: Marco Simoncelli, Italy, Metis Gilera.

125cc: Mike Di Meglio, France, Ajo Motorsport Derbi. Di Meglio clinched 2008 125cc World Championship. American Stevie Bonsey placed 25^th and is 14^th in series points.

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NEXT RACE 

Grand Prix of Malaysia, Sepang Circuit, Oct. 19. Round 17 of 18.

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