Stoner wins in China

Casey Stoner produced a perfect performance to claim his second Moto GP win in a row in the Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai.

The 21-year-old Australian's win came after the Ducati rider resisted intense pressure from Valentino Rossi for the first half of the race and then rode away from him after the Italian made a mistake by running wide at half distance.

"I can't believe it," said Stoner, whose victory was his third of the season and of his career. "I've won almost as many races in Moto GP as in 250s.

"I guess it was just a matter of playing the race out and it's worked perfectly. I feel very comfortable with the Ducati team and even after our qualifying problems, we still have lots of faith in each other.

"We knew nothing wrong was gonna happen in the race and it was just a great result."

It was Suzuki rider John Hopkins who took the lead at the start from pole-sitter Rossi, but both were quickly passed by Stoner, who used his Ducati's superior straightline speed to blast by the pair down the kilometre-long straight at the back of the track.

After that Stoner and Rossi pulled away to the tune of two seconds with the Yamaha rider compensating for his bike's lack of power by being inch-perfect through the twisty section and twice taking the lead only to be re-buffed.

In the end he tried a move that was never really on, on lap 16, leaving his braking far too late for the hairpin at the end of the straight and running wide – an incident that dropped him back to third behind Hopkins, who had re-joined the lead battle.

Rossi re-passed the American for second by the end – a result that means he now trails championship leader Stoner by 15 points – but Hopkins was still delighted with his maiden podium finish.

Fourth was Dani Pedrosa on a Repsol Honda, who had Gresini rider Marco Melandri behind him.

Ducati rider Loris Capirossi and Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen both passed Randy de Puniet's Kawasaki for sixth and seventh in the final two laps after the Frenchman had occupied a top-six spot for the whole race, and the top ten was completed by Alex Hofmann's d'Antin Ducati and Carlos Checa's LCR Honda.

11th was Colin Edwards, but the Yamaha rider spent the entire race dropping further backwards after starting from the front row.

He was only one spot in front of world champion Nicky Hayden, who was delayed by a first corner crash that eliminated Toni Elias and also delayed Alex Barros, but gained two places when Shinya Nakano and his Japanese countryman Makoto Tamada collided while squabbling over 12th.

EuroSport