The recent race at Catalunya circuit for the 7th round of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix (MotoGP) was the most exciting race this season so far.

Three drivers namely Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro), Valentino Rossi (FIAT Yamaha), and Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda, Honda RC212V equipped with Honda brake disc) rode their bikes battling for the 1st place. At the end, Casey Stoner took home the victory after 25 laps leaving Rossi behind with only a mere 0.069 seconds and Pedrosa with 0.390 seconds behind the checkered flag. Whew! What a close fight. More than 100,000 race fans have witnessed the three-man racing battle in Catalunyan GP.

Stoner still leads the MotoGP World Championship with a total of 140 points, Rossi in the 2nd place with 126 points, and Dani Pedrosa in the 3rd spot with 98 points.

Check out the comments made the top 2 drivers after the Catalunyan GP race.

Casey Stoner, winner, Ducati Marlboro Team:
"Going into this weekend we weren’t sure how things would go. At Mugello we had a few difficulties and we thought it might be the same here. On Friday we weren’t exactly on the pace, we were losing a lot in a couple of areas. Fortunately, the team worked really hard, we came up with a solution on Saturday morning and since then we’ve kept the bike exactly the same. The whole team did a great job this weekend and proved wrong people who said we can’t win on European tracks. There were some nice passing maneuvers going on everywhere. All three of us had our strong points and our weak points around the circuit, I was just trying to minimize my weak points and cover my lines, and it worked out. It was such a close race, no one could go away, it was very, very enjoyable to be racing that close. It was really good because our bike was set up quite well for the braking points, so for Valentino to pass us he usually had to run wide and we were able to pass him back immediately a lot of times. The way the team has set up the bike for me is fantastic, and the Bridgestones worked great again, at a circuit where they’ve struggled in the past, so they’ve really changed things around. Today was another great race for us, I’m still not thinking about the championship, maybe later in the season we can really start aiming for that."

Valentino Rossi Position: 2nd, FIAT Yamaha Team
"What a race! Even if I’m disappointed not to win, it’s a great emotion to be part of a race like that and fantastic fun. It really was an amazing battle to the end with many wonderful overtaking maneuvers by both of us in all different parts of the track! Unfortunately I lost a bit of time at the start and then it was quite hard to pass Hopkins because he was fantastic on the brakes. Then with Stoner it was a great fight and honestly I couldn’t have tried harder to win, but he was a very hard rival. There were some places were we could have been better today, not just on the straight but also in some corners, but anyway it was a great experience and it will help us to understand what we need to do to keep on improving. Yamaha and Michelin are working very hard and the fact that we could fight like this today to the very end showed this. Of course I’m sad because I’ve won a lot of times here in Montmelo and I wanted to win again, but like I said, I don’t think I could have done anymore today! We know that we can beat Stoner but today he rode like a god and he’s a fantastic rival, so congratulations to him."

Watch out for the upcoming British GP this coming June 24th. Check out this blog for more MotoGP and Motocross updates.