With first ever 1-2-3Bridgestone is celebrating an historic performance this afternoon after its riders dominated the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul.
Ducati's Casey Stoner took the lead on the opening lap and never looked back, leading home Honda Gresini's Toni
Elias and team-mate Loris Capirossi for the first ever Bridgestone 1-2-3 in a MotoGP event. The win marked the tenth victory on Bridgestone tyres in MotoGP.
Pramac d'Antin's Alex Barros hounded Capirossi for the final podium place in the closing laps but settled for an equally impressive fourth at the chequered flag. Marco Melandri took fifth for Honda Gresini with Suzuki's John Hopkins in sixth, both men putting in excellent performances. Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet and Pramac d'Antin's Alex Hofmann made it eight Bridgestone-shod riders in the top ten, by far the most competitive performance by Bridgestone tyres in the corporation's comparatively short MotoGP history.
An early crash involving Dani Pedrosa (Honda), Colin Edwards (Yamaha), Olivier Jacque (Kawasaki) and Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki) resulted in only Vermeulen able to rejoin the race. Such was his competitiveness coming back up through the field, the Australian was able to set the quickest lap of the race (1m54.026s) on his penultimate lap to reclaim a fighting eleventh place.
The consistency of Stoner's race winning pace meant that the young Australian posted seven laps of 1m54.2s with only his opening and final lap over 1m54.8s, a variation of just 0.6s over twenty laps.
Hiroshi Yamada – Bridgestone Motorsport - Manager, Motorcycle Sport Department
“Today's result is fantastic for Bridgestone as we celebrate our tenth MotoGP victory with our first ever MotoGP 1-2-3. For me this is a real dream come true. Congratulations to Ducati, who sit at the top of the championships, as well as to the Honda Gresini team for their first podium this year. Turkey has always been a tough track for us and it has been particularly gratifying that we have been able to find a breakthrough for this year's performance. We had five riders in the top eight with each of our teams, which is an incredible achievement. I would like to express my thanks to all five of our teams for their patience and support while we have worked hard to find solutions for this circuit and we look forward to continuing this trend in the upcoming races.”
Tohru Ubukata – Bridgestone Motorsport - Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development
“We are obviously delighted with the results from today's race. As an engineer, we are always looking for continuous improvement in our technological development, so we are not going to take today's performance for granted. Nevertheless we take great pride in the technical advances we have made since last year's Turkish GP, a race in which we really struggled. Our direction for tyre development appears to be correct and certainly paid dividends today. I hope we can confirm this in the next GP in China in two weeks' time.”
Bridgestone Race Results - Front - Rear
P1 Casey Stoner Ducati 42m02.850s Winner - Slick Hard - Slick Hard
P2 Toni Elias Honda Gresini 42m09.057s +6.207s - Slick Hard - Slick Medium
P3 Loris Capirossi Ducati 42m10.952s +8.102s - Slick Hard - Slick Hard
P4 Alex Barros Pramac d'Antin 42m10.985s +8.135s - Slick Hard - Slick Hard
P5 Marco Melandri Honda Gresini 42m11.139s +8.289s - Slick Medium - Slick Hard
P6 John Hopkins Suzuki 42m13.036s +10.186s - Slick Hard - Slick Hard
P8 Randy de Puniet Kawasaki 42m17.584s +14.734s - Slick Hard - Slick Medium
P9 Alex Hofmann Pramac d'Antin 42m18.892s +16.042s - Slick Hard - Slick Hard
P11 Chris Vermeulen Suzuki 42m29.099s +26.249s - Slick Hard - Slick Medium
DNF Olivier Jacque Kawasaki Did Not Finish First Lap - Slick Medium - Slick Medium
Bridgestone Motorsport
