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With a wink and a smile, Casey Stoner showed he was back in business after finishing second in Sunday’s Portuguese GP.
The 2007 Moto GP world champion made a superb return to the track after missing three races with a fatigue problem with only Spanish rider Jorge Lorenzo able to outpoint him at Estoril.
“We are rally happy to be second, to come back from this and silence the critics,” Stoner said after his first race since July.
It was Lorenzo’s second straight Portuguese Grand Prix victory and he gained on teammate and Moto GP overall leader Valentino Rossi.
Starting from pole position, the Yamaha rider quickly retook the
lead after losing it to Dani Pedrosa early on in the 28-lap race and
was unchallenged to the end for his fifth win.
Rossi, who started second, finished fourth and now leads the
standings with 250 points while Lorenzo has 232 with three races
remaining.
Lorenzo finished 6.3sec ahead of Stoner and 10sec in front of Pedrosa with Rossi a huge 23.4sec behind.
“I didn’t expect to win with such a gap. It was a perfect weekend as we dominated in practice, feeling great on the bike and also in the race I think it was one of the best performances in my life,” said Lorenzo.
“At the beginning it was a little bit difficult to open a big gap because I could only do it one tenth of a second at a time, but then Casey’s rhythm dropped and I was able to maintain my pace.”
On his title chances, he added: “It will still be very difficult but now we can say that it is not impossible. I think I can take a few risks because I don’t have anything to lose. Valentino has to win the championship and we just have to keep trying.”
Eight-time world champion Rossi is likely to consider his ride a failure having managed to finish on the podium here in all nine of his previous visits to Estoril.
The next round of the MotoGP championship is the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island on October 18.
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