Stoner 'reasonably happy' with second

If the new world champion had won today it would have been his 11th victory of the season, a feat previously achieved only by Valentino Rossi, Mick Doohan, and Giacomo Agostini.

But the Marlboro Ducati rider today could not stop the challenge of rival Daniel Pedrosa, whose Repsol Honda eventually finished the race more than five seconds ahead of the Australian.

"I had to push that extra little bit harder and I made a couple of mistakes," said Stoner, "but I'm happy with the way I rode today and I think I got the most of out the bike and I'm reasonably happy with the way the weekend has gone.

"Dani just rode a faultless race and didn't make any mistakes and deserves this win, so I'm also very happy for him cause I now know what it feels like to win one's home GP. Especially in this class, it's a very good feeling," added Stoner, who won the Australian GP at Phillip Island last month.

Stoner also said he was surprised at the pace he and Pedrosa held in the first part of the race, until he started losing touch with his Spanish rival.

"Definitely I expected the pace to be in the low 1:33s, but I didn't expect it to be quite that fast for so long," he said. "At the beginning of the race everything seemed quite good and then Dani came past and pulled a bit of an advantage straight away and I just wasn't able to claw it back.

"With five laps to go I started to lose quite a lot of grip on the left hand side of the rear tyre, and I just decided to call it a day. We were quite a distance in front of the rest and our pace had been really strong."