Aug 31, 2008 - Championship leader Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) thrilled his home crowd by taking victory at Misano as defending champion Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro) once again crashing from the lead despite a significant margin. Rossi' teammate also joined the celebration - joining on the 2nd step of the podium. Once again Toni Elias (Alice Ducati) placed his satellite Ducati on the podium.
Stoner looked to be on point as he lead every practice and qualifying session and took the lead in the race at the first corner. It took Rossi a couple of laps to pass Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) for 2nd, but by that point Stoner had nearly a three second lead. That gap remained as the duo continuously swapped fastest laps. On lap eight, however, Stoner crashed and allowed Rossi to take a comfortable victory - as in the previous races Stoner and Rossi had significanly gapped the field.
Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha - 1st Today is a truly fantastic day and I can't believe that I have matched Agostini's record! He was one of my heroes so it's quite incredible to have made it to 68 wins. This was quite a difficult weekend for us from the start and there has been the added pressure of a home race, which makes it harder to concentrate because there is so much distraction! Mugello has always been 'my' track, even though it's further away from Tavullia, but here, after the bad time last year, we haven't found it so easy. Once again today however my team gave me a very competitive bike and I felt very confident. I got a good start but then Dani came past me very fast and I then lost a lot of time getting past him and had to take some big risks - I had a big slide! Once I was past him I could see Casey, although I have to admit that today I wasn't as confident as I was in Brno that I could win. Anyway I kept pushing because it's not in my nature to ride for second place and I think it still could have been a battle; I was very fast once I found my rhythm. Then I saw Casey slide out. I'm sorry for him once again but this is very good for our championship so I am happy for our team. We have 75 points, which is a lot, but there are still five races and I will ride to win at every one, as I always have done throughout my career. Thanks to my fantastic Yamaha team, to Bridgestone and of course congratulations to Jorge as well, he kept pushing me today and I wasn't able to relax even for one minute! It is a great day for us all.
Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha - 2nd Seeing the party Valentino's fans were making for him around the track today reminded me how much I want to start winning again, but as a start this second place is fantastic for us! I lost some ground at the early on but then I took my rhythm, passed Dani and started to push, and then I kept pushing until the end. To be one and two on the podium again, like in Le Mans, is wonderful and after four months of problems I am enjoying this moment very much - it's perfect. Since the Brno test and with the improvements that Michelin have made here my confidence has being going up all the time and my riding style has improved as well, so I want to say thank you to them. I hope the situation is the same at the next races, then we can continue to be strong like this. Thanks to all of my team and congratulations to Valentino and Toni.
Toni Elias - Alice Ducati - 3rd After Laguna Seca things have changed radically. I always had much better feeling with the bike and the results prove it. I hope to continue this way for the rest of the season. I would love to fight for the Podium at each Gran Prix. I know it's not easy but I will try. I had a lot of fun here today even if this circuit, with all these turns, hard breaking and acceleration is really tiring. At one stage I tried to follow Lorenzo but I made some mistakes and I decided to hold on my position and here is when Pedrosa caught me up. Therefore I decided to calm down a bit and I found back the initial race rhythm. I am really happy for this result also for the all Alice Team.
Dani Pedrosa - Repsol Honda - 4th That was a definitely a very physically tough race for everyone. It was very hot, much hotter than yesterday. Anyway, I can say I'm quite happy with the result. I didn't expect to finish fourth at the end. We had some trouble during the second half. We had two different rear tyres to choose from and I only made the choice on the grid. I went for the softer of the two tyres, thinking to gain some advantage during the early stages of the race. Obviously it wasn't the best option. But we had a much better race than we had at Brno and I did my best, so I am quite happy.
Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki - 5th I got a good start and, although I got pushed a bit wide in the first turn, I still thought I'd hold on to my position but as I entered turn two the rear tyre was just not warm enough and I had a big slide. I thought it was all over then, but luckily I landed back on the bike and although I smashed the fairing with my leg no harm was done! I didn't quite have the pace that I have had this weekend which was probably due to the higher temperatures, and we certainly slid around a bit more today! This is the first time we have raced with the new chassis and with the new construction front tyre that Bridgestone brought here for us, so with all things considered - and from where I ended the first lap - I think we had a good race. The tyres worked especially well and I did my fastest time on lap 25 out of the 28 - it was just a shame I wasn't with the front group from the beginning or things might have been very different!
Casey Stoner Crash
James Toseland - Yamaha Tech 3 - 6th I got a decent start off the line and held my grid position in ninth, so I wasn't too disappointed and got into the groove quite quickly. I was battling with Dovizioso and Nakano for the first half of the race. I passed Shinya and then started chasing Dovizioso but just as I caught him I started having some troubles. But he was too and I managed to pass him and make it stick. Then Chris Vermeulen came past and pulled away which was a bit frustrating because I was hoping for fifth to get my best result. Coming from where I'd been in the last few races and to produce a ride like that was brilliant. That is what I'm here for and I really enjoyed it. I was about ten feet wide on those last few laps and probably the widest Yamaha in history. I knew Loris and Dovizioso were behind me in those last few laps and they wanted my place in front of their home fans. Loris passed me on the penultimate lap but I'd blocked the line so he had to go really deep and he just went slightly wide and he left half a door open and I moved back through. I didn't touch him so it was all fair and square. On the last lap I blocked into the last two corners and I knew I'd got sixth with it being a short drag to the line so it was a great feeling. Michelin has had a lot of stick recently but they have knuckled down and so have I. We have kept working hard and today we showed what we can achieve together with Tech 3 and Yamaha.
Loris Capirossi - Rizla Suzuki - 7th It has been quite a hard weekend for me as we have been working a lot on the new chassis and getting it right. I really want to thank my team as they have all worked so hard to get it the best it can be. I think maybe we changed too many things on the bike and lost our way a bit, but at the end the bike seemed to work ok. This morning during warm-up we went back a bit and then on the grid I had to change my front tyre and had to start with a new one that didn't have the right feeling to start with. The tyre soon got better and in the end I didn't go too badly! I made a big fight on the last lap and tried to overtake, but I made a little mistake and couldn't quite hold it, but for my 277th Grand Prix it was not too bad!
Andrea Dovizioso - JiR Scot Honda - 8th I did everything possible with the material at my disposal today. In the race I had to overtake many riders and recover positions that I lost from my starting position of 14th. My aim today was for fifth position, but I felt my front tyre wasn't so good on the entrance to the corners, while the rear tyre was very good. In order to not lose contact with the other riders I had to maintain high corner speed, while other riders were able to be slower through the corners but then accelerate away. Despite this, today we again proved we can be competitive and we have to keep on this level.
Marco Melandri - Ducati Marlboro - 9th I got a good start but lost a lot of ground in the second corner because Vermuelen almost crashed in front of me and I nearly hit him. But I have to say that the feeling with the bike was good from the first lap. I got past De Angelis but I guess he was keen to get back at me and he tried a pass in a corner where it was too difficult to pass. We touched and I ran wide, losing a lot more ground again. Slowly but surely I recovered and passed a few riders but the group ahead was too far away, otherwise I could have fought for an even better result. In general, even though the result is not as good as Brno.
Colin Edwards - Yamaha Tech 3 - 10th It was a very tough race and not what I'd expected. I thought it was going to be tough, but not that tough and obviously I wanted to do better for my guys at Tech 3 who tried everything to solve some of our issues here. Unfortunately some of the issues we can't control, and I was struggling for grip in the early stages. I just couldn't get any temperature in the rear tyre and I didn't have the confidence to push like I wanted to. Those first three laps just dictated my result because once I got into my pace my lap times were pretty decent and good enough to be fighting much further up. But I lost too much in the early part of the race. The problem is on a short track when everybody is doing pretty much the same lap time; it is impossible to make up a lot of time. I got through to tenth and I've got a chance to put things right on home soil in Indianapolis next time out.
Sylvain Guintoli - Alice Ducati - 11th Today we had many difficulties. I pushed at the maximum but lap times weren't going down. The race rhythm compared to yesterday wasn't as good and we still have to understand why. I would like to conquer a good result this season for the Team and all the sponsors that have worked really hard this year. I will do my best in these last five races.
Shinya Nakano - Gresini Honda - 12th It was a really difficult race for us today. Despite making a decent start and getting a couple of good laps under my belt, I started to feel a chattering problem in certain corners and couldn't push hard. By the closing stages of the race my lap times had dropped off by three seconds compared to our pace in practice leading up to this Grand Prix. It is obvious that something isn't working but we'll have to analyse the data to find out what it is and work out a solution.
Anthony West - Kawasaki Racing - 13th I just didn't have the confidence to push the front all weekend, and I couldn't found a solution to this, which was obviously reflected in our result today. On a positive note we did manage to set the fastest lap time of the weekend in the race, and had we been further up the grid, I am sure we could have been battling for stronger positions. John and I were locked together for most of the race and although I had to push quite hard, I managed to hold him off to the flag. At the post-race test in Brno we tried a revised specification front tyre from Bridgestone, which definitely was an improvement, but we couldn't get it to work comfortably with the bike here, so this is an area we need to concentrate on as I believe this can help us achieve better results.
John Hopkins - Kawasaki Racing - 14th This weekend has been frustratingly tough for us. Having aggravated the injury to my rib we missed two sessions and basically ran out of time to set the bike up. We got a good start to the race, but I was suffering with quite a lot of discomfort from the injury and I just couldn't push as hard as I wanted to. We're struggling with a few problems with the front-end feeling, but again, that's simply down to a lack of track time. All of the other Bridgestone riders are on a different specification tyre, and this is something we need time to test as I think it will make a big difference for us. I'm having some intense treatment overnight and hopefully we can get plenty of laps under our belt tomorrow to put us in better stead for my home race in Indianapolis.
Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro - DNF/Crash It is very disappointing for the weekend to end like this after showing such a high level of performance in practice. Basically we took the decision to put one lap on the race tyre in warm-up this morning to get it scrubbed in: we've done it before and not had a problem but today I could feel from the first lap that the grip wasn't right. After a few laps it started to feel better and I was gaining confidence but it let go. It's a real shame but, anyway, we tried hard here and once again I think we've shown we are very fast, we have a great bike and tyres that work fantastically. This gives me confidence for next year and I'm looking forward to it already. As for the injury, it's huge disappointment this problem came out but I'll have to wait until the end of the season for an operation.
Randy De Puniet - LCR Honda - DNF/Crash I am very disappointed for me and the Team. The whole week end has been very positive and the 4th position on the grid was a good occasion for me. I made a good start from the second row and knew that I could get a positive result as my pace was consistently fast throughout the week end. I was fifth when I went wide in the last corner loosing the rear control. My right arm aches a bit but will be fine for tomorrow's test. The Team made an excellent job this week end and I want to thank them for their efforts.
Randy De Puniet - LCR Honda - Crash/DNF I am very disappointed for me and the Team. The whole week end has been very positive and the 4th position on the grid was a good occasion for me. I made a good start from the second row and knew that I could get a positive result as my pace was consistently fast throughout the week end. I was fifth when I went wide in the last corner loosing the rear control. My right arm aches a bit but will be fine for tomorrow's test. The Team made an excellent job this week end and I want to thank them for their efforts
Nicky Hayden - Repsol Honda - DNS This wasn't an easy decision. I love to race and the racer in me wanted to race, but in this kind of situation it's better to listen to the experts. The heel got worse as the weekend went on. I was sixth on Friday morning but I kept working my way backward after that, the more I rode, the more strength I lost in the foot. When I woke up this morning I had a lot of swelling and bruising, there wasn't any way the foot was going to fit in a boot. The team and I took the decision to try and be smart, to try to let it heal as best it can to get it ready for Indy, which is a huge race for me. I felt I could have salvaged a little something out of today's race but that was just going to make things worse for Indy and for the rest of the season.
Hiroshi Yamada - Bridgestone - Manager, Motorcycle Sport Unit Congratulations to Valentino and the Yamaha team for their win today. We are very sorry for Casey, crashing at the beginning of the race even though he had a big advantage over the second position. All our teams have worked very hard all weekend and there were some great results once again, particularly with Toni getting his second podium finish in a row and Suzuki showing another good performance. It was a very competitive race so I am pleased we have been able to get five riders finishing in the top 10, which is a very good balance among the tyre manufacturers. Next time we go to Indianapolis which is the first time for everyone so we will try our best to get a good result even though it will be a new challenge.
Tohru Ubukata - Bridgestone - Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development We have had a reasonable weekend from the tyre performance point of view, in spite of the very hot track conditions on all three days. Many riders were able to demonstrate a good pace with the race tyres. Casey had been very strong all weekend and was quick from the start of the race so it was especially unfortunate that he crashed out. He mentioned that his feeling with the front tyre was not as good as it was with the same specification tyre in practice, so we will naturally look into this. Basically, though, our tyre performance and consistency was good. However, our competitors were very strong so our rate of development must not stop for the final five races of the season.
