MOTORSPORT WRAP FOR MONDAY 1^ST JUNE 2009

STONER TAKES WIN AND CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD

Australia's Casey Stoner has grabbed the lead in the MotoGP World Championship after a sensational ride in varying conditions at the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello.

Heavy rain before the race meant riders started on the Bridgestone wet weather tyre compound. However, as the track started to dry, the riders began to dive into the pits to change to slick tyres.

Stoner had slipped to sixth position by lap eight before eating into the lead on his Bridgestone slicks.

Opting for the medium-compound front and rear Bridgestone tyres, Stoner chased down Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso to take the lead on lap 14 and record his first Italian Grand Prix for his Ducati team.

"When the track was very wet the bike was working great, but as soon as the track started to dry out a bit we struggled," Stoner said.

"I wanted to be as close as possible to the leaders when we did change to slicks, so we pushed it further than we would have normally, but I had a really good feeling with the slick tyres immediately and we were able to start chasing down Dovizioso bit by bit."

Bridgestone predicted Mugello would be the toughest test of tyres so far this season, and the weather added to this challenge in the fourth MotoGP weekend to be affected by rain this year.

"Again this weekend we saw very difficult conditions for our tyres, with cold conditions and a wet start that quickly dried," said Tohru Ubukata, Bridgestone Motorsport's Manager of Motorcycle Race Tyre Development.

"I am happy with the performance of our wet and slick tyres. Even in the cold and damp conditions both the medium and hard compound Bridgestone slicks worked well, even as the track temperature got colder throughout the race."

World championship standings:

TANDER OPENS HOLDEN ACCOUNT

It had been a long time coming, but Garth Tander finally took Holden's first win of the 2009 V8 Supercar season with a carefully-controlled victory in the first race of the weekend at Symmons Plains in Tasmania.

Driving his Bridgestone-backed HRT Commodore, Tander took out his third successive pole position at the track. In the race, he just managed to hold off Russell Ingall who harried him throughout the 42-laps with just one tenth of a second between the two at the finish.

Series leader and defending champion Jamie Whincup quickly re-established Ford's dominance with a start-to-finish win in the 84-lap second race of the weekend, with HRT's Will Davison in second.

Whincup now leads Davison by almost 100 points in the championship.