Daily Update MotoGP

MotoGP championship leader Valentino Rossi beat crowd favourite Nicky Hayden to win the inaugural, rain-shortened Indianapolis Grand Prix.
The rain that shortened the 125cc race, and forced a rescheduling of the 250cc round, came back with 16 laps of the 28-lap MotoGP race gone, and caused the red flag to be shown on lap 22.
By then Rossi, who had a major moment with his Fiat Yamaha on lap 17 but managed to save it, had already overtaken Hayden's Repsol Honda on lap 14 and kept edging away from him, after the Kentucky rider took the lead at the end of lap two.

Rossi didn't have the best of starts from pole as he dropped to fourth, with title rival Casey Stoner taking the lead immediately with his Ducati Marlboro and followed by Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso.
In the space of a few corners the JiR Honda rider, who started in seventh, overtook both men ahead, but Hayden was soon back on his tail and from the beginning of third lap he was ahead and chased by Rossi.
Rossi and Hayden exchanged fastest laps for ten consecutive laps, while the rest of the field, led by the Italian's teammate Jorge Lorenzo, dropped back. The Spaniard, however, opened up a wide gap over a fighting trio composed of Stoner, Dovizioso, and Rizla Suzuki wild card Ben Spies.
In the end, the top six positions were classified exactly in that order, which was taken at the end of lap 20.
Sylvain Guintoli finished seventh with his Alice Ducati, ahead of Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa, eighth in his racing debut with Bridgestone tyres, Chris Vermeulen's Rizla Suzuki, and Alex de Angelis's Honda Gresini.
Pos Rider Bike Time
1. Valentino Rossi Yamaha (B) 37:20.095
2. Nicky Hayden Honda (M) + 5.972
3. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha (M) + 7.858
4. Casey Stoner Ducati (B) + 28.162
5. Andrea Dovizioso Honda (M) + 28.824
6. Ben Spies Suzuki (B) + 29.645
7. Sylvain Guintoli Ducati (B) + 36.223
8. Dani Pedrosa Honda (B) + 37.258
9. Chris Vermeulen Suzuki (B) + 38.442
10. Alex de Angelis Honda (B) + 42.437
11. Anthony West Kawasaki (B) + 47.179
12. Toni Elias Ducati (B) + 55.962
13. Randy de Puniet Honda (M) + 57.366
14. John Hopkins Kawasaki (B) + 58.353
15. Colin Edwards Yamaha (M) +1:00.613
16. Loris Capirossi Suzuki (B) +1:05.620
17. Shinya Nakano Honda (B) +1:05.854
18. James Toseland Yamaha (M) +1:07.968
19. Marco Melandri Ducati (B) +1:21.023
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Reigning MotoGP champion Casey Stoner is keeping his expectations in check for tomorrow's Indianapolis Grand Prix, despite qualifying second behind title rival Valentino Rossi.
The Ducati Marlboro rider, who had been on a run of seven consecutive pole positions but crashed in the last three races, was in fact surprised to qualify as high as second after suffering an engine failure in the morning's session.
"We don't expect so much this weekend: we've had not so much track time," Stoner told Italia1 television. "We've had a few problems, and we're just trying to get the confidence back.

"It was close, but we've struggled a little bit today. We broke an engine in this morning's session, and when the track was starting to become a little bit drier you could actually get a bit of a feel for it.
"(Instead) we had to spend the last 20 minutes in the box because we broke the engine. So it's a little bit disappointing."
He added: "Coming into this afternoon's session we were trying to do a lot of things in a short period of time, and we just couldn't get done all we needed before we put the qualifying tyres on. I was struggling with the front to get feeling from it, been having quite a lot of chatter.
"But to end up second I was actually quite impressed, I didn't think I was even going to get on the front two rows. I've been struggling a little bit this weekend and it's nice to come away with second anyway."
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