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This was not a classic MotoGP race by any stretch, but a crowd of 141,000 watched Casey Stoner (Ducati) record his seventh win from 12 races as John Hopkins (Suzuki) finished a distant second and Nicky Hayden (Repsol Honda RC212V) managed a fighting third place here at Brno.

With a 26-degree ambient temperature and a track at a moderate 35-degrees, the lights went out to signal the start of this 22-lap race. Stoner, from pole, immediately set about his task, cleanly leading the field into turn one.

By the end of lap one it was apparent that Stoner was unlikely to be troubled. Hopkins similarly, was edging out a gap over third-placed Hayden and by the end of lap two the leaders were turning in lap times in the low to mid 1m 58 second bracket - times the others found hard to match.

On lap five Stoner enjoyed a 1.1 second lead over Hopkins who in turn held Hayden and fourth-placed Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC212V) at bay quite comfortably. The action was all downfield as a fight for fifth place erupted between Loris Capirossi (Ducati), Valentino Rossi (Yamaha), Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki) and Randy de Puniet (Kawasaki).

Nicky Hayden (3rd Place)
Well I'm pretty happy with the podium and I feel like we've done a decent job this weekend. Yesterday afternoon we made quite a big change with the front forks and I liked the results a lot. When I got into third position on lap two of the race I was thinking 'now you've got to get on his back wheel' and for about three corners it was looking pretty good. But then I got onto the straight, looked up and realised that really I was just dreaming. So I just kept my rhythm and I really feel like I got the best out of the bike, myself and the tyres today - I don't feel like I left much on the table. So thanks to my team because those guys did a good job. Hopefully we can keep this form going and get a little bit stronger from now on. I'd also like to dedicate this podium to Cedric Laprael, the parts guy in the Repsol Honda Team, who isn't here this weekend because he had a parachuting accident during the summer break. Get well Cedric. The team's going to stay for a couple of days testing with some new parts from Honda and a lot of Michelin tyres so we can to try and bridge the gap to these front guys.

Dani Pedrosa (4th Place)
Fourth position is the maximum we could achieve today and at least I've closed the gap a little to second in the championship which is somewhat positive. Still, I'm frustrated after the race today because I didn't feel like we could use all the potential of our package. For the first few laps I couldn't get enough heat into the rear tyre which meant I wasn't able to maintain my position and I was passed by a few riders. Then after four or five laps I could feel more heat in the tyre but by this time the leaders had gone, and Nicky too. I pushed as hard as I could for the whole race but the lap times just weren't there and my pace was slowing steadily. I'm frustrated because we haven't made the improvements in the package I was hoping for. We must work hard during the test over the next two days. Obviously, to fight for the title is very difficult, but I'm not going to give up this season. We have to try to keep the third place in the championship and at the same time try to go forward into second.