Casey Stoner returns to winning ways with dominant victory at Assen

If the Moto2 championship may have took a definite turn in Marc Marquez’s favour with Pol Espargaro crashing out, the MotoGP championship is now wide open again as Jorge Lorenzo was wiped out on the very first lap by an over eager Alvaro Bautista who missed his braking point taking out the standings leader along with himself.

Assen is now officially cursed for Lorenzo, the same thing happened to him last season at the Dutch circuit when the late Marco Simoncelli crashed into him on the first lap and now another Gresini rider took him out.

The furious Spaniard was seen limping into the Race Direction and it was later announced that the incident was under investigation.
(Bautista took out Rossi, Hayden and De Puniet last year at Valencia)With Lorenzo out of the game, the race became an in-house duel between Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner with the battered Australian – he suffered a massive highside in FP3 – tailing his team mate for almost half the race distance until he pounced with an easy pass with ten laps left and then cleared out and cross over the finish line with a 4.

965s margin to take his third victory of the season and more importantly he is now tied in first place with Lorenzo.
The third place podium became a battle between Yamaha’s, factory rider Ben Spies vs satellite rider Andrea Dovizioso, with the Italian catching the American on the final laps and passing him in the middle of the last lap to take his second podium of the year for Monster Yamaha Tech 3.
Cal Crutchlow finished in fifth after being pushed back to twelfth trying to avoid the Bautista-Lorenzo incident had to charge through the field to take the position, losing a massive amount of time behind the Ducatis of Hector Barbera, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden before passing them.
Nicky Hayden was sixth and the best Ducati rider ahead of an agressive Hector Barbera.
Valentino Rossi ended up 13th, after he suddenly slowed down on the 13th lap after being passed by both Crutchlow and Barbera.
The Italian was forced to pit with a defective hard rear tire that was losing pieces all over the circuit.
With Stefan Bradl crashing out on lap two and with Lorenzo and Bautista also out, Rossi having to pit, the CRT’s made their appearance in the top ten Randy de Puniet taking eighth, followed by Gresini’s Michele Pirro and Mattia Pasini with his ART machine completed the top 10, while Danilo Petrucci who is the slowest rider of all the CRTs took 11th place in a field of 14 riders that finished the race.
MotoGP Assen Race Results:01- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 26 laps in 41’19.
855 02- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 4.
965 03- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 11.
994 04- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 14.
775 05- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 22.
074 06- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 31.
660 07- Hector Barbera – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 59.
107 08- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 1’04.
441 09- Michele Pirro – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1’06.
980 10- Mattia Pasini – Speed Master Team – ART GP12 – + 1’25.
087 11- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda TR003 – + 1’32.
103 12- Ivan Silva – Avintia Blusens – BQR MotoGP – + 1’33.
797 13- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – 1 lap 14- James Ellison – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP12 – 1 lap