Casey Stoner says Brno victory down to 'trying harder' during race

The Australian inherited the lead when his polesitting Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa crashed out early on, and was never headed afterwards as changes to the bike made after warm-up enabled him to push far harder than he previously thought possible.

"This weekend was very, very tough for us," Stoner said. "We struggled to get the bike feeling where we wanted it to be and took till the end of qualifying to get somewhere near.

"Then we tried something different in warm-up and it really wasn't the right direction, so I was a little bit worried going into the race about how competitive we're going to be.

"We pretty much took a shot in the ark and tried something for the race. It wasn't a lot better than in qualifying; I just put in a lot more effort than I had done in the rest of the practices. I hadn't had a lot of confidence with the bike all weekend and I just decided to lay it on the line and try something I hadn't done before."

Stoner's victory was his sixth of the 2011 season, and increased his championship lead from 20 points to 32 over Jorge Lorenzo as the Yamaha rider fell back to fourth by the chequered flag.

However, the 2007 world champion stopped short of admitting that this had been a crucial race in deciding the destiny of this year's title.

"If we look at points, yes it's important," he added. "But as a race it's just as important as any other because you have to put wins and points together to win championships.

"The way things are going [off the back of a victory at the previous race at Laguna Seca], it couldn't have been much better."