Rossi wins in Brno as Bridgestone riders take top honours
Round 12: Czech Republic - Race

Automotodrom Brno - Sunday 17 August 2008 - Fiat Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi has this afternoon claimed his fifth win of the season at the Czech Republic Grand Prix, leading an all-Bridgestone podium in a race which saw the top eight places occupied by riders using Bridgestone tyres. It is Bridgestone's best combined result in MotoGP, beating the previous best top six result from Turkey 2007, and the tyre manufacturer's third consecutive win in Brno.

Second place went to Alice Team's Toni Elias who stormed through the field from 13th on the grid to claim his and the team's first podium result of the season after a heroic ride aboard his Ducati. Loris Capirossi also made a welcome and well deserved return to the podium in third place, increasing Rizla Suzuki's run of podiums to three consecutive races.

San Carlo Honda Gresini enjoyed a competitive afternoon with Shinya Nakano making strong headway during the race to take fourth place, just four seconds off the podium, and setting the third fastest lap of the race overall. Kawasaki's Anthony West had his most competitive event of the year with a fine fifth place, ahead of the Suzuki of Chris Vermeulen in sixth, Marco Melandri in seventh for Ducati and the Alex De Angelis in eighth for Honda Gresini.

As a result of his victory, Rossi has extended his lead of the world championship to fifty points with early race leader Casey Stoner not scoring after retiring from the 22-lap event on the seventh lap. Stoner still holds second in the ranking and demonstrated his sheer pace around the resurfaced Brno circuit by laying claim to the fastest lap of the race, smashing the existing record by almost one second.

Hiroshi Yamada - Bridgestone Motorsport - Manager, Motorcycle Sport Unit
"I am very pleased with the results that we have achieved across all six of our teams during this weekend in Brno and I'd like to extend my thanks to each of them for their efforts. We had our most successful qualifying performance of the season in the rain yesterday, which has been followed by our best ever race result in the dry this afternoon. Congratulations to Valentino and Yamaha for another win, their fifth of the season, which adds another 25 points to their championship total. Casey was very unfortunate and it is a shame that he could not capitalise on the strong form that he has demonstrated this weekend. Brno has been a good track for us in recent years and it is nice to continue our winning streak in this year's event. with Toni and Loris also scoring their first podiums of the season."

Tohru Ubukata - Bridgestone Motorsport - Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development
"Our tyres were able to help many of our riders obtain really good results in today's race and it shows that our approach and our tyre choice were generally correct for this new surface. After a positive Friday, we lost a lot of important dry weather running in Saturday's wet sessions, which prevented us from understanding the behaviour of the tyres over longer distances. The new asphalt is particularly tough on the front tyre and, unfortunately, Chris and Sylvain experienced front-end difficulties which did not allow them to challenge as high up the field as their practice pace suggested they could. John also had a difficult race after a great start, losing rear grip which gradually dropped him down the order. Nevertheless, considering the difficult situation with the new track surface, I think today's result is a great achievement for us."

Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha Team - Race Winner and Championship Leader
"I was confident today because my bike was fast from Friday practice, and with Jeremy we made a small modification to the front after warm-up to allow me to be a bit faster in some sections, and it worked very well. I lost about half a second getting past Hopkins at the start and Casey was incredibly fast at that stage, like he'd already done ten laps! For a short time I was worried but then, after two laps, I understood that my bike was working very well and that I was fast enough to try to catch him. I was anticipating a very hard battle if I did catch him, so when I saw the red bike slide out I could hardly believe it - this made things a lot easier for me! After that I just enjoyed riding my bike; my Bridgestone tyres worked very well until the end and my M1 felt very good. Now we have two days of testing and we will try some new electronics in order to help me open the throttle earlier and also, of course, test some Bridgestone tyres"

Bridgestone-shod Riders' Race Results and Tyre Choices

Weather: Dry - Air 20°C, Track 29°C (Bridgestone measurement)
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