Ducati Marlboro Team’s Casey Stoner was delighted after winning the inaugural event at Motorland Aragón at the weekend and he admitted it was a ‘big relief’ to finally take his first MotoGP win of the season, especially as he had come close on previous occasions.
Stoner, who started from pole position, had to earn his victory the hard way, overcoming a first lap battle with runaway championship leader, Jorge Lorenzo and then withstanding race long pressure from Dani Pedrosa.
The Australian was never more than a second ahead for most of the event and it was only in the closing laps that he finally broke free, eventually finishing 5.148 seconds ahead.
“This win is a big relief, to be honest!” Stoner said. “We had the first race in Qatar wrapped up until I made a mistake and there have been other opportunities to win this year that I have missed out on through my own errors.
“We have had a lot of problems trying to find the final two or three tenths to run with Dani and Jorge this season but we changed the bike completely this weekend to adjust my position on it and got it working almost how we want it to. I had a little slip off in warm-up this morning which was a worry going into the race.
“I was staying away from every white line that I could over the first few laps but we were able to pick up the pace when we needed to and bring home a win.
“I want to thank the team, the factory and everybody who has stuck by me – I'm just sorry it took so long!”
Team Manager Vittoriano Guareschi added: "I am really happy for Casey. He pushed very hard from the start to the finish but he always had the situation under control and even when he made a little mistake he recovered strongly and lap after lap he established an insurmountable lead over Dani. He really was brilliant today.
“Now we have to keep working as hard as ever to make sure we finish the season strongly," he concluded.
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