Stoner Lights Up Losail with 11th MotoGP Win
The first ever night MotoGP race has been added to the impressive tally of Casey Stoner victories after the 2007 champion rode his Bridgestone shod Ducati across the line in 42 minutes 36.587 seconds, narrowly edging out pole position holder Jorge Lorenzo at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit. The Losail victory, Stoner’s eleventh in MotoGP, came despite what the tyre major has described as “challenging night-time track conditions…which have made for a difficult weekend for Bridgestone.”
“At the start of the race, I hung back a bit because I wanted to wait until things calmed down a bit, keeping out of trouble and not losing pace with the front pack,” commented Stoner. “Although qualifying did not go too well, we knew we had quite a good race pace, but this win is a fantastic result and I don’t think we really expected it. At the start, I lacked side traction and traction in general, but once the tyres warmed up, we could put in some good lap times. The rear grip was dropping towards the end of the race and we had a couple of front end slides, but as the fuel level dropped, the pace was still good.”