Stoner: Final laps were 'like torture'

The Australian claimed his third consecutive victory and his fourth of the year at Silverstone, moving into an 18-point championship lead in the process.

He lost his pole advantage at the start, as his Honda team-mate Andrea Dovizioso and Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo took the early initiative. Stoner admitted that he was deliberately cautious at first.

"It was very, very hard," he said. "We didn't get off to the best start, and Andrea was very confident at the start of the race - something I wasn't. I wanted to wait for the tyres to pick up."

Once he had passed Dovizioso and retaken the lead, Stoner at first struggled to pull away from the rest of the pack, before later dominating. He explained that visibility issues had slowed him initially.

"When I was behind them I pretty much got drenched - all the water that they were throwing up, I was copping it in the face," said Stoner.

"Unfortunately I got a bit of water on the inside of the visor and when I got into first place I thought it would all clear away and I'd have good vision, but basically I had no vision, I couldn't see where the wet patches were, I couldn't understand where on the track I needed to be.

"After that, the water went away from the inside of my visor and I could actually start to pick my points and get a bit more confidence, and that's when my times started to drop.

"Once we got a bit of a lead, I felt a lot more relaxed and I was just trying to make sure we didn't crash in those conditions because it would have been so easy to.

"There was water and puddles at different parts of the track getting quite a lot deeper. The last few laps were a little bit better, but to be honest that was torture for the last 10 laps.

"For the last seven laps I was counting down and they were taking so long. My hands were freezing, I couldn't brake properly, I couldn't understand what brake pressure I had.

"It was very, very difficult so I'm very happy with this win."