While Valentino Rossi won his seventh MotoGP Championship with a calculated third place finish at the rain-lashed Malaysian Grand Prix, it was Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner streaking away to score a convincing victory. And although the Australian made it look easy, the conditions in won in were quite difficult. The Grand Prix was actually scheduled to begin at 3 P.M., 30 minutes before the bikes were set to leave the stating grid in anger, rain came down in buckets and the start time was shoved back to 3:35 P.M. When the race did actually begin, Stoner immediately put the hammer down and clicked off lap times that were upwards of three seconds faster than any other rider. When all was said and done, Stoner sliced through the failing rain to win the GP by a brilliant lead of over 15 seconds.
In Rossi’s charge at the title, he began the race cautiously, soon motoring his way up to Rossi made his way up to the rear tire of Repsol Honda's Andrea Dovizioso. Rossi would make his way through to get into third, a few seconds behind point Rossi was a couple seconds behind Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa. Rossi would remain in position to clinch the title as Yamaha teammate Lorenzo finished fourth.
"It has been a difficult season and more difficult than last year because I made some mistakes and I had some bad races like in Portugal where we didn't work at 100%," Rossi said. "I have great rivals, but especially this year Jorge (Lorenzo) has made a great job and put a lot of pressure on me. We've made some great battles during the season and the overtake in Barcelona at the last corner was unforgettable for me. We have a lot of good and bad emotions."
Way back behind Lorenzo came Ducati Marlboro's Nicky Hayden in his second best finish on the Ducati.
"I was happy to get through, I can't even say the first corner, the whole first three laps was just chaos," he said of the early race chaos the rain caused. . "Guys running wide, especially here with all the braking zones. Guys just outbraking each other. Nobody knew-we got a sighting lap and a warm-up-so nobody really knew any braking points, where it was really slicker than the others. The track was, there was a couple spots where there was certainly more water than the others. So it was a lot going on
those first couple of laps. But I enjoyed it."
Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen finished sixth, just ahead of San Carlo Honda Gresini's Toni Elias. Hayate Racing's Marco Melandri was eighth and Pramac Racing's Mika Kallio was ninth. Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi placed tenth.
Results:
1. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
4. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
5. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) 6. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)
7. Toni Elias (Honda)
8. Marco Melandri (Kawasaki)
9. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
10. Alex De Angelis (Honda)
11. Mika Kallio (Ducati)
12. Aleix Espargaro (Ducati)
13. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
14. Gabor Talmacsi (Honda)
15. James Toseland (Yamaha)