Bridgestone Motorsport Wrap for August 18th 2008

Stoner slip lets Rossi ride to win at Brno

A mistake on the sixth lap by Aussie rider Casey Stoner has handed his MotoGP archrival Valentino Rossi a win at the Czech GP in Brno.

The young Aussie was leading by more than a second when the newly laid tarmac brought him low - his first DNF since joining the Bridgestone-backed Ducati team at the start of last season.

Rossi, riding his Yamaha also with Bridgestone tyres, took every advantage of the opportunity and increased his championship lead to 50 points over Stoner who remains in second place.

Rossi was joined on the podium by two unlikely visitors. Toni Elias of Alice Team finished well back in second but did excellently after starting from 13th on the grid. Third place was secured by veteran rider Loris Capirossi, his maiden podium for Suzuki.

Shinya Nakano on his factory Honda finished fourth, while Australia's Anthony West secured the best result of his MotoGP career onboard the Kawasaki, riding superbly for fifth.

"I was confident today because my bike was fast from Friday practice. We made a small modification to the front after warm-up to allow me to be a bit faster in some sections, and it worked very well," Rossi said.

"I lost about half a second getting past Hopkins at the start and Casey was incredibly fast at that stage - like he'd already done ten laps - so when I saw the red bike slide out I could hardly believe it.

"After that I just enjoyed riding my bike; my Bridgestone tyres worked very well until the end and my M1 felt very good."

Bridgestone Motorsport's Tohru Ubukata, Manager of Motorcycle Race Tyre Development, also had a good weekend.

"Our tyres were able to help many of our riders obtain really good results and it shows that our approach and our tyre choice were generally correct for this new asphalt which is particularly tough on the front tyre."

Most of the MotoGP teams now have two days of testing before gathering for the San Marino GP on 31 August.