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Casey Stoner was unable to turn his sixth
successive pole position into a podium today when he relinquished a one-second
advantage over Valentino Rossi and crashed out of the twelfth round of the
season at Brno. It is the first time the reigning World Champion has not made it
to the chequered flag after thirty races, since signing for Ducati at the start
of 2007, and it leaves him 50 points behind the Italian rider with six races
remaining.
Marco Melandri, who started from the fourth row of the grid,
put together an impressive charge through the field to finish in seventh place -
his second best result of the season.
Following the Czech Republic Grand
Prix, Ducati moved up to second in the constructors' championship at the expense
of Honda thanks to a fantastic podium for Toni Elias, who came from the
penultimate row of the grid to finish second.
MARCO MELANDRI (Ducati Marlboro Team) 7th
"The first ten laps were really difficult because I got a bad
start and I didn't have a good feeling. I couldn't push the bike on the way in
or the way out of the corners because the bike wasn't hooking up and it felt
nervous. Gradually as the fuel load lightened and the tyres got up to
temperature the grip improved and became more precise. I managed to improve my
pace lap by lap and caught the group ahead of me, then made some passes. It's a
shame I lost more than ten seconds over the opening laps because we could have
had a really good result today."
CASEY
STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) DNF
"Obviously we are all
disappointed with this result because our pace in practice was good, everything
went very well this morning and we felt we could push out in front. Things were
going according to plan until the crash. I was doing the same lap time over and
over and I was quite happy with the pace I was running. The crash came out of
the blue, that corner was an easy one but I lost the front and it happened very
quickly, very suddenly and I didn't manage to save it. It's a hard one to
explain and we will look at the data but sometimes this kind of crash happens at
this level of racing and it was my mistake! We knew that we needed to win this
race - and more - in order to close down Valentino's advantage so this makes the
championship very difficult for us. Anything can happen in racing but fifty
points is a big gap against such a strong and consistent competitor. Anyway I
never throw in the towel, nor does anybody at Ducati, and we will keep fighting
until the end. Misano is a home race for the factory and there will be lots of
Ducatisti there, so my main thought now is to stay positive and bounce back with
a good show for them in two weeks' time".
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