Ducati expected much tougher race

A first corner clash with Randy de Puniet took Repsol Honda duo Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa out of contention, and then Valentino Rossi lasted only five laps before his engine expired.

Casey Stoner ultimately won the race by four seconds from Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen, but Ducati Corse CEO Claudio Domenicali believes the Michelin riders would have been a threat.

"The race was obviously atypical because Pedrosa was extremely fast this morning but he couldn't complete a single lap in the race," Domenicali told Italia1 television.

"We didn't know what tyre Pedrosa had and if he could complete the race with it.

"The race was tough here: we chose a very hard compound which was not the one we used on Saturday morning. Then it was softer and the difference was half a second, but obviously safety is the most important thing and we went for the safest solution. This made us lose some performance.

"We don't know what kind of tyres Pedrosa might have had, and Valentino's problem did not allow us to see what the conditions were.

"Obviusly Casey, who in the warm-up was not as brilliant as he was throughout the weekend, had a fine pace, so we were reasonably confident he could do well in the race too."

Stoner said he had feared Rossi would be hard to beat in the race - even though he believed Ducati had taken a step forward since practice.

"Yesterday I wasn't so confident for the race. I didn't feel we had the best setting," he said.

"But when we arrived on the grid today I felt confident with the setting that we had and everything worked well. We had a good start and were able to get the advantage.

"I expected Valentino to be very strong and to battle a lot in this race because it's his home track and I think he really wants to be running in the front again, but unfortunately something happened.

"For sure I expected there to be some overtaking manoeuvres and a very difficult race."