Casey Stoner was feeling nervous before Saturday's Assen race, but only because he knew it would take a mistake by him to lose the Dutch TT.
The reigning
MotoGP world champion has been in unstoppable form since an engine management breakthrough at the post-Catalunya test, resulting in a commanding victory last Sunday at
Donington Park.
Qualifying at Assen had seen
Dani Pedrosa and
Valentino Rossi get surprisingly close to Stoner, but the young Australian always felt his race pace was untouchable - and so it proved.
After passing Pedrosa at the end of the opening lap, Stoner guided his Desmosedici to a 11.310secs victory over the Repsol Honda rider.
"We knew we had the pace to win today but sometimes coming into race day that can make you even more nervous because you know the only thing that can go wrong is yourself!" said Casey.
"I was also worried about the weather and after watching the 125 race I thought it would be typical to start raining whilst I was in the lead. Thankfully that wasn't the case and I was able to get out front, put my head down and concentrate on doing the times we've been doing all weekend in dry conditions," he added.
The Australian's third victory of the year means he is now 29 points from Pedrosa, who is also the new world championship leader after Valentino Rossi fell on the opening lap in Holland and could only manage eleventh.
Rossi is now 25 points in front of Stoner, having been 45 ahead of the #1 at the start of the race.
"I'm sorry Valentino crashed because this isn't necessarily the way I wanted to recover points on him, but at the end of the day we've had our fair share of bad luck this year too and racing is an unpredictable game," stated Stoner. "Now it seems fortune is favouring us but more than that I've really got to take my hat off to Ducati and to my team. They've been doing such a good job over the past few races to get us back on the pace again and make us consistently competitive, so I want to say 'thank you' to all of them."
