Casey Stoner has admitted that he tried his upmost to defend from Jorge Lorenzo on the final lap of this afternoon’s German Grand Prix, admitting that he thought the Spaniard’s move would be too risky. To the Australian’s surprise, his chief title rival moved into second at the final corner and cut the gap in the title race to just 15 points.
"We knew today would be a hard race, we found a good set up yesterday in qualifying but we had an issue with the rear tyre and the temperatures getting too high, with it spinning too much," the Repsol Honda rider explained. "We took it easy in the early part of the race and thought we'd try to preserve the tyre and warm it up slower than we did in Mugello.
"After a few laps I decided to make a move to the front to see what we could do and we were able to pull a small advantage, but too small compared to the effort we were putting in so I backed off on my pace a little and tried to stay as smooth as possible and see what happens.
"They came past me and Dani was riding so strong and was able to get past Jorge before I got there, he built a small advantage and by the time I got past Jorge and I struggled to chase him down. I made a few small mistakes and that left just Jorge and I for the last few laps.
"I tried everything I could, riding the cleanest lap possible and trying to block my line, but Jorge came up on the dirty part of the track and I thought it would be too high a risk but he made it stick and I have to settle for third place. I'm still leading the Championship and I'm thankful for the points here today."
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Casey Stoner
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  D. Pedrosa | Repsol Honda | 41:12.482 |
| 2. | J. Lorenzo | Fiat Yamaha | +1.477 |
| 3. | C. Stoner | Repsol Honda | +1.568 |
| 4. | A. Dovizioso | Repsol Honda | +10.513 |
| 5. | B. Spies | Fiat Yamaha | +10.719 |
| 6. | M. Simoncelli | Gresini | +10.923 |
| 7. | A. Bautista | Rizla Suzuki | +27.451 |
| 8. | N. Hayden | Ducati | +27.510 |
| 9. | V. Rossi | Ducati | +27.576 |
| 10. | C. Edwards | Tech 3 | +33.491 |
| Full results | |||
| Casey Stoner | |||
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| More Casey Stoner photos | |||
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