Rossi ends Stoner's MotoGP win streak

MONTEREY, California (AP) -- Valentino Rossi finally conquered one of the two tracks he had yet to win on in MotoGP, beating Casey Stoner to win the United States Grand Prix at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Rossi claimed his 66th career victory by winning by 13.001 seconds over Stoner, the defending champion, who crashed on the slow turn 11 with eight laps remaining but remounted to continue the chase to the end.

"For sure the race was unbelievable, it was a great battle with Casey," Rossi said. "It was fun, a lot of fun in this race. It was a high-level battle for sure."

Chris Vermeulen was third after taking second to fellow Australian Stoner last year, finishing eight seconds ahead of Italy's Andrea Dovizioso.

The result ended Stoner's three-race winning streak and left Rossi atop the championship standings with 212 points, 35 ahead of his Australian rival.

The victory leaves the track in Misano, Italy -- site of the San Marino Grand Prix -- as the only course where Rossi has yet to win since the MotoGP class was introduced in 2002.

"We knew we had to be perfect to win today," said Rossi, whose previous best finish at Laguna Seca was third in 2005. "We made a few changes this morning in warm-up that made us faster in the race.

"I tried very hard to stay in front as it is very hard to pass here. But things are going well, I now have more points than I had at the end of last year."

Rossi and Stoner fought for the lead from the first lap, when Rossi's Spanish teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, crashed exiting turn five where the new track joins the old.

His rear tire slipped, gripped and then tossed him over the handlebars, leaving his Yamaha with severe damage and his ankles injured.

Stoner, who had the lead off the line, and Rossi traded the lead throughout, at times leaving the track and then nearly colliding on the fourth lap.

With eight laps to go, the pair traded the lead in and out of turns two, three and four, with Rossi taking the lead for good along the outside as they exited the last.

When Stoner had a slow crash in turn 11, he was able to remount with a a big enough gap over Vermeulen, that he was still in second place when he returned to the track.

Stoner pressed in his attempt to become just the third man to crash in a grand prix and still win, but Rossi started the last lap with a 14-second lead over Stoner and was not challenged.

"The pace was really high and that's good," Stoner said. "I made a mistake in the last turn, it was completely my fault. Val was riding well, but some of his passes were very aggressive, some of them not really fair.

"So we're second in the championship now and not too long ago we were considered out of the championship."

American Nicky Hayden, who was third early, struggled with his Michelin tires. He -- and others -- had been sent wrong tires from Michelin's shop in France. He finished fifth.

"Obviously at my home race I hoped to put up a better fight than this," Hayden said. "It was certainly a tough weekend. We struggled a bit with the tires.

" For the race we put on a new grippy tire and the balance of the bike changed quite a bit. I would like to have been closer to the front but we learned a good lesson this weekend."

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