The MotoGP circus arrived for the AirAsia Australian grand prix with Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa inching his way closer to championship leader Jorge Lorenzo of Factory Yamaha having won four out of the last five grand prix races. On the other hand local favourite Casey Stoner, placed third in the championship had only one aim, to win his last ever home grand prix as he retires from the sport next year onwards. And he did achieve the goal in no less than a magnificent manner by dominating the race right from lap one and then pulling up a lead to take his sixth successive victory at Phillip Island. Stoner’s supremacy on his home circuit has been established right from 2007 season when he secured a ride for Factory Ducati team. To add an interesting bit of trivia to substantiate Stoner’s authority at his home grand prix, the Australian has led for 160 laps out of the total of 160 laps completed by him in past six years.

Establishing his speed and form right from Friday practice and then securing pole position on the start grid, Stoner certainly looked super-confident as well as a lot more relaxed for the race in front of his home crowd. As the race began, Yamaha’s Lorenzo was blisteringly quick off the line to take early lead going into turn one on the first lap followed closely by the Repsol Honda duo of Pedrosa and Stoner. Eventually the fast charging Pedrosa made his way past Lorenzo to take lead soon after which Stoner too passed Lorenzo to take second. Going into lap two the leading trio came into the tightening turn 4 ironically called Honda Corner, where Pedrosa ran a bit wide and in his efforts to make the line stick lost the rear tyre on his Honda RC213V.

Unhurt, Pedrosa was able to remount on the bike but was eventually forced to retire due to damage to the motorcycle. Meanwhile Stoner swiftly upped his pace and pulled a huge lead over Lorenzo, who kept his cool and kept putting consistent lap times without trying too hard to catch up with Stoner. As the 27-lap race came to an end, Stoner was a good nine seconds ahead of Lorenzo to bag his sixth consecutive win at Phillip Island. With Pedrosa suffering a DNF early in the race, Lorenzo was rarely challenged and comfortably finished in second place to take his second MotoGP World title again astride a Yamaha. Joining the two world champions (each with two titles to their credit) was Brit rider Cal Crutchlow of Monster Yamaha Tech3 finishing in a lonely third place to take his second podium of 2012 season, previous one coming in Brno.

While the top three finishers mostly had a lonely race, an intense battle raged on for fourth place between Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Andrea Dovizioso, San Carlo Gresini rider Alvaro Bautista and LCR Honda rider and MotoGP rookie, Stefan Bradl. The trio battled from the very beginning and exchanged places on multiple occasions eventually Dovizioso taking fourth followed by Bautista in fifth and Bradl in sixth. Factory Ducati pair of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden finished in seventh and eighth positions, respectively. Following them in ninth place was the Ducati of Karel Abraham of Cardion AB team while the highest finishing CRT machine of Aleix Espargaro riding for Power Electronics Aspar team completed the top ten finishers list after having engaged and triumphed in a dogfight with fellow Power Electronics Aspar rider, Randy de Puniet.