Stoner dedicates third straight win to team

It was another extraordinary performance from Casey Stoner in torrentially wet conditions at the Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland on Sunday.

Stoner struggled throughout the race with a stomach upset, but held his nerve to take victory in the rain and close the gap to series leader Valentino Rossi to 20 points, having trailed by 50 just three races ago - and is now only four points behind crasher Dani Pedrosa in second place.

In addition to Pedrosa, Marco Melandri was another rider to be caught out by the wet conditions. The Italian was in the process of a stunning charge through the field and had made his way up to seventh place from sixteenth on the grid, only to crash moments after setting the fastest lap of the race.

Casey Stoner - first

`I saw Dani ride off into the distance and I thought `fair play´ - there was no way I could keep that pace in those conditions at that time. We definitely needed a bit more time to get the tyres up to temperature and Dani just kept edging away, but then after a few laps I was coming down the main straight and I could see his bike bouncing around in the gravel at turn one. It´s a shame for him but even though he crashed he was still very impressive today. From then on it was a case of keeping my concentration but that wasn´t easy because I´ve been a little sick all weekend and I wasn´t feeling at all good during the race. Also, we went with quite a hard rear tyre compound and I had quite a few small moments that made me nervous but kept me on my guard. I kept pushing where I could and managed to keep opening out the advantage with every lap, then kept it upright to the end. It´s nice to close the championship down a little bit more and once again I owe a huge thank you to the team, who have adapted the bike to virtually any condition here.´

Marco Melandri - DNF

`This time I feel angry that we didn´t get the result we deserved, not disappointed that we haven´t been fast, as has been the case on other occasions. The crash was a real shame because even though there´s always the chance of making a mistake in the wet I felt good at that time, the tyres were up to temperature, the bike was working well and I was coming through fast. I don´t know how many riders I passed but it was a few and I felt fast, happy and positive. The group ahead of me were some distance away but I felt I could keep improving. In fact, we´d made progress with our pace in the dry and we´ll see how we go from here in America. It´s a nice track and I hope we can start out well.´