MotoGP points leader Casey Stoner was able to celebrate his 'best racing weekend' after a dominant display at Laguna Seca allowed the young Australian to extend his lead over Valentino Rossi to 44 points.Casey Stoner put on a stellar performance to take victory number six of the 2007 season.

The Australian had laid out his stall early this morning, becoming the only rider to ride a lap of the American circuit in under 1’22. Having set the tone for the day in the warm up, Stoner then went about smashing the circuit record and the 12 race MotoGP pole jinx en route to a memorable victory at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix. Leading every one of the race’s 32 laps, his only moment of worry came when Dani Pedrosa took the holeshot, although the lead was soon relinquished as the 21 year-old Ducati rider began to run the show.

"This would have to be my best racing weekend ever," Stoner, who celebrated his win with a two-year extension to his Ducati contract, admitted. "We also had a great weekend at the Sachsenring last week, it just didn't work out in the race. Today everything was perfect, the tyres, the bike, everything was working great the whole weekend".

"We managed to be fast in every session and after all this hard work we did it in the race. We also broke the long run of no pole sitter winning a race - the last person to do it was on a Ducati and the next person to do it was on a Ducati. I'm absolutely stoked about this race. We went out in morning warm-up and we were able to do really low 22s and even high 21s with half race distance on the tyres, so we felt pretty confident. At the start of the race I dipped into the 22s, I wanted to see how fast everybody else could go. I was pulling away from Dani [Pedrosa] by about half second lap, then Chris got in front of him and started to chase me down. I thought he was obviously pushing a bit harder so I decided to up my pace and I was slowly but surely pulling a gap".

"Chris was very fast, but I feel like I had a little bit better rear tyre, we had selected a pretty hard rear which really started working towards the end, so I just continued to push throughout the race. I didn't think there was going to be a big group at the front, I knew we had the set-up and it was just a matter of everything going to plan for us with no bad luck and everything worked."

Another Australian joined Stoner on the podium, as Chris Vermeulen confirmed the potential that he had shown at Laguna Seca last year. In that race he led for over half the race before suffering a mechanical problem, but today the Suzuki GSV-R800 was in fine form and allowed him to take a comfortable second place.

Marco Melandri rounded off the rostrum places, once again demonstrating that he is as tough as they come by taking a top three finish from tenth with an injured ankle. The Italian was unable to ride this morning after a crash yesterday, but gritted his teeth for another display of determination and talent. Both he and Vermeulen now lie level on points in fourth in the overall standings.

Also riding injured, Valentino Rossi fell just short of a podium spot, but gathered vital points in his title challenge to limit the damage of Stoner’s back-to-back victories and Rossi’s own DNF in Germany last weekend. He came in ahead of current third placed rider Dani Pedrosa, who had looked on course for a podium until Melandri and Rossi showed their cards and the Spaniard did not have the hand to answer them.

Randy de Puniet was the highest finisher from Kawasaki Racing, on a fantastic day for ‘Team Green’ in which all three of their riders crossed the line in the top ten. Regular team-mate Anthony West continued his consistent race-by-race form by adding a seventh place to his ninth and eighth results at the last two Grands Prix.

Taking advantage of Dunlop’s intimate knowledge of the Laguna Seca circuit, Makoto Tamada earned his best result of the season onboard the Yamaha satellite M1 in eighth.

Alex Barros and Roger Lee Hayden were involved in a late tussle for ninth place, with the Brazlian’s experience showing through as he edged out the Kawasaki wildcard on the final lap. The younger Hayden brother was the highest finishing American at his home race, with sibling Nicky and John Hopkins involved in a first lap racing incident which left both out of the running for victory.

The MotoGP World Championship takes a break after the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, returning on August 19th for the Cardion AB Grand Prix Ceske Republiky.

Race result

1-Casey Stoner
2-Chris Vermeulen
3-Marco Melandri
4-Valentino Rossi
5-Dani Pedrosa
6-Randy De Puniet
7-Anthony West
8-Makoto Tamada
9-Alex Barros
10-Roger Hayden
11-Colin Edwards
12-Shinya Nakano
13-Sylvain Guintoli
14-Carlos Checa
15-John Hopkins
16-Chaz Davies

World Championship Standings

1-Casey Stoner
2-Valentino Rossi
3-Dani Pedrosa
4-Chris Vermeulen
5-Marco Melandri
6-John Hopkins
7-Colin Edwards
8-Loris Capirossi
9-Alex Barros
10-Nicky Hayden
11-Alex Hofmann
12-Randy de Puniet
13-Toni Elias
14-Makoto Tamada
15-Carlos Checa
16-Anthony West
17-Shinya Nakano
18-Sylvain Guintoli
19-Kurtis Roberts
20-Roger Lee Hayden