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Stoner Wins Catalunya GP, Gets Closer to Lorenzo

Round 5 of the 2011 MotoGP Championship took place in Catalunya today, with Casey Stoner scoring his third win this season, after taking the top times in all three free practice sessions there. Thus, the Australian managed to reduce Jorge Lorenzo’s points lead to just seven.

"Everything's been working so well here it's like a dream. The bike and hard compound tires were working well for us all weekend and we knew we had good race pace. There is a lot of degradation on this track so I tried to hold the pace we had in qualifying and get some consistent laps in whilst the tires were good,” stated Stoner after the race.

"Then the rain came and I didn't know how hard to push. The track hasn't been very grippy all weekend so it was a little nerve wracking because it would have been very easy to come down in those conditions. I'm very happy to bring it home for another win,"
the Repsol Honda rider added.

Lorenzo’s teammate Ben Spies managed to score his first podium as a factory Yamaha MotoGP rider, followed by Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso and Ducati’s Valentino Rossi on fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Marco Simoncelli, who had his first-career pole in MotoGP, had a terrible start, dropping to seventh place on the first lap, and only managing to regain one place by the end of the race. Cal Crutchlow took seventh on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha.

Rounding out the top 10 were Ducati Team's Nicky Hayden, Pramac Ducati Racing's Loris Capirossi and Cardion AB Motoracing Ducati's Karel Abraham.
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