Phillip Island MotoGP: Casey stoner runs away with victory

Reigning MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner has taken victory at his home Grand Prix at Phillip Island ahead of a valiant Valentino Rossi.

Casey Stoner ran away at the front of the pack from the beginning of the race as mayhem unfolded behind him at the front corner.

Stoner said: “This weekend has been a bit rough. We’ve had ups and downs but I was confident for the race. This track normally ends up in a big fight for places but we managed to pull away.”

American Nicky Hayden took off in pursuit of Stoner and the two pulled away from the rest of the field.

At the first corner Alex De Angelis and Spaniard Dani Pedrosa crashed out and both were unable to restart. Chris Vermeulen also ran off track at the first corner. Dissolving any hopes he had of a good home race.

Briton James Toseland got an excellent start to make his way up to third place ahead of fellow rookies Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo.

Newly-crowned champion Valentino Rossi then made his charge to the front from 12th place, but he encountered James Toseland, who wasn’t going to give up third place without a fight.

It took several laps and several overtaking attempts for Rossi to get past Toseland and pull away in pursuit of the leaders.

Rossi managed to close the gap on second place Hayden and on the penultimate lap made up over half a second on the American. On the penultimate lap Rossi passed Hayden. Hayden tried to respond but made a mistake which saw Rossi slightly pull away.

Meanwhile an epic battle was taking place for fourth place between Toseland, Lorenzo, Dovizioso and Nakano.

At the beginning of the final lap Lorenzo was in fourth place while Nakano was in seventh. But when the group crossed the line Nakano was fifth, pushing Toseland back to sixth and Dovizioso back to seventh. This meant Toseland equalled his best race finishof sixth.