ahead of Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso, Lorenzo taken out on first corner
The 90,248 spectators occupying the grandstands at the 'Cathedral' enjoyed a two-man battle between Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa, who led from start to finish, with no rivals to challenge them.
Stoner celebrated his sixth consecutive podium in Assen with another victory, his third of the season, and Pedrosa crossed the line behind him to complete the team's fifth double podium of the 2012 MotoGP World Championship. This result, combined with Jorge Lorenzo's unfortunate crash, places Stoner in the joint championship lead with 140 points and Pedrosa, 19 points behind them consolidating third position.
Casey Stoner
"To take pole position and now the win is really incredible, a big thanks to my whole team who never gave up. My plan was to get a better start than I actually did, take some advantage and use the energy I had to try and make a gap and try to hold on to the end. We also knew that whichever position we were in, we had to preserve the rear tyre. With a few laps remaining, I knew we wouldn't suffer a big drop in tyre performance, I still felt good so I decided to pass him and see if I could pull a gap. It was a tough race, I had a lot of arm pump as I had to compensate for my injuries from the crash yesterday, but my fitness was good and the bike was working well in general. I'm sorry for Jorge, nobody wants to take points over a competitor in this manner, but as we can see, one race can change everything."
Dani Pedrosa
"Looking at the lap times we did during the weekend, I knew I had better rhythm than Casey, so I made a good start and tried to pull away from the first laps. Casey stayed behind me all the time and by the second half of the race, I believe he took profit of extra energy he saved during the first part of the race to overtake me. Our pace was very good in the race, the bike worked very well but maybe I just chose the wrong strategy this time. I hope to do a better strategy next week in Germany."
Pos Rider Team/Bike Time/Gap1. Casey Stoner Honda 41m19.855s2. Dani Pedrosa Honda + 4.965s3. Andrea Dovizioso Tech 3 Yamaha + 11.994s4. Ben Spies Yamaha + 14.775s5. Cal Crutchlow Tech 3 Yamaha + 22.074s6. Nicky Hayden Ducati + 31.660s7. Hector Barbera Pramac Ducati + 59.107s8. Randy de Puniet Aspar Aprilia + 1m04.441s9. Michele Pirro Gresini FTR-Honda + 1m06.980s10 Mattia Pasini Speed Master Aprilia + 1m25.087s11 Danilo Petrucci Ioda-Aprilia + 1m32.103s12 Ivan Silva Avintia Inmotec-Kawasaki + 1m33.797s13 Valentino Rossi Ducati + 1 lap14 James Ellison Paul Bird Aprilia + 1 lap
DNF
Aleix Espargaro Aspar Aprilia 14 lapsColin Edwards Forward Suter-BMW 7 lapsYonny Hernandez Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 5 laps Stefan Bradl LCR Honda 1 lap Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 0 laps Alvaro Bautista Gresini Honda 0 lapsKarel Abraham Cardion Ducati 0 laps
