Stoner eases to victory in Malaysia

Stoner grabbed the lead at the start and was never headed. In the early laps he was followed closely by Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa, but in the middle of the race he eased out a small gap up to around two seconds.

In the closing laps Marco Melandri reduced the gap to just over a second, but just when it looked like Stoner might be put under pressure for victory, he opened the gap back up to win by 1.7 seconds.

After starting the race on the front row, Marco Melandri fell back to fourth at the start, but moved into third ahead of Randy de Puniet on lap five. Four laps later he passed Pedrosa for second, the two having a bit of a dice before Melandri asserted himself.

In the closing laps the top four riders of Stoner, Melandri, Pedrosa and de Puniet appeared to be riding in formation, each separated by a gap of one to one and a half seconds, and that was how it finished.

After a poor weekend leading up to the race, fifth place a second behind de Puniet and less than five behind winner Stoner must've seemed almost like a win for Yamaha's Valentino Rossi. A good start saw him quickly up to sixth by lap three and from there he matched the leaders' pace, but was unable to close the gap to make a move.

A distant sixth was the second Gresini Honda of Toni Elias, 13 seconds behind Rossi, who finished a couple of seconds ahead of the Suzuki riders of Chris Vermeulen and John Hopkins, who spent most of the race swapping positions back and forth, the Australian eventually winning the battle.

Just behind Hopkins was Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden, who should've finished sixth or higher. But an outbraking move gone wrong at the final hairpin on lap 12 sent him through the gravel and in the end ninth was a good result.

The hard luck story of the race went to Anthony West, who instead of lining up fifth on the grid, lined up where sixth did in the 125cc and 250cc races. Slightly out of position, he ran in the top five in the early laps, but was penalised for his grid error.

Resuming 20th, he recovered to 15th by the end of the race to score the final point.

Pos  Rider             Bike           Time
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  43:04.405
 2.  Marco Melandri    Honda     (B)  +   1.701
 3.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     (M)  +   2.326
 4.  Randy de Puniet   Kawasaki  (B)  +   3.765
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (M)  +   4.773
 6.  Toni Elias        Honda     (B)  +  17.667
 7.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  +  20.950
 8.  John Hopkins      Suzuki    (B)  +  22.198
 9.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  +  22.450
10.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  +  29.746
11.  Loris Capirossi   Ducati    (B)  +  34.923
12.  Alex Barros       Ducati    (B)  +  35.667
13.  Nobuatsu Aoki     Suzuki    (B)  +  44.113
14.  Carlos Checa      Honda     (M)  +  44.486
15.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  +  49.658
16.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (M)  +  51.726
17.  Chaz Davies       Ducati    (B)  +  58.905
18.  Makoto Tamada     Yamaha    (D)  +  59.596
19.  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha    (D)  +1:23.119
20.  Kurtis Roberts    KR        (M)  +1:50.960