Stoner wins in Turkey

Marlboro Ducati’s Casey Stoner has won his second race of the season at the third round of the MotoGP championship at Istanbul.

The young Aussie took a dominant win from fellow young-gun Toni Elias and his Ducati team-mate Loris Capirossi.

The race was full of incident, starting on the first lap.

Rossi, from pole, ran wide off the track at the fast right-hander at well over 100mph while leading, but managed to keep the bike upright and rejoined the action.

But braking into the next corner, a 180 degree left-hander, Kawasaki’s Olivier Jacque braked too late, clipping the rear of Colin Edwards and taking down Dani Pedrosa and Chris Vermeulen as a result.

The Suzuki rider picked himself up and fought back to a heroic 11th position, finishing just one place behind Valentino Rossi who suffered serious tyre problems that put him out of contention when he looked like he could threaten Stoner’s lead.

Alex Barros impressed aboard the D’Antin Ducati, taking a superb fourth position, and Nicky Hayden looked to have solved some of the issues with his Honda 800 finishing in seventh – the first Michelin rider to cross the line.

Casey Stoner now leads the championship from Valentino Rossi.

RESULTS

1 Casey Stoner
2 Toni Elias
3 Loris Capirossi
4 Alex Barros
5 Marco Melandri
6 John Hopkins
7 Nicky Hayden
8 Randy de Puniet
9 Alex Hofmann
10 Valentino Rossi
11 Chris Vermeulen
12 Carlos Checa
13 Shinya Nakano
14 Makoto Tamada
15 Sylvain Guintoli
16 Kenny Roberts

DNF:
Dani Pedrosa
Colin Edwards
Olivier Jacque