Casey Stoner’s signature performance is fast becoming one of raw guts, which is perhaps fitting, given that he met his wife when she asked him to autograph her stomach at a race. Yesterday, in a breathtaking Catalan Grand Prix, there were plenty of colourful passes to thrill a packed Montmelo crowd and leave Valentino Rossi scratching his head.

The margins were as slight as the effort was huge. Stoner’s Marlboro Ducati beat Rossi’s Fiat Yamaha by 0.069sec and the pair exchanged the lead 12 times in the final eight laps. “Every lap I had to invent something new to get past,” Rossi said. “We were overtaking in places you do not normally overtake. It was a great show.”

No one loves a scrap better than Rossi, but his quest for a sixth world title in the elite class will be a gruelling slugfest.

Stoner started the year with a reputation for crashing but won his debut race for Ducati in Qatar. The cynics said that he would struggle when he got to the European circuits. “We’ve proved a few people wrong,” he said.

The problem for Yamaha and the rest is how to counter the power advantage of the Ducati. Whenever Rossi is duelling with Stoner on a long straight only one outcome is likely. Rossi did his best yesterday, slipstreaming Stoner, braking perilously late and trying to protect his lines, but there is more to Stoner than a fast bike.

He is 21, but moved to Britain at the age of 14 because he was not legally allowed to race in his native New South Wales until he was 16. He lived in a camper van in Cumbria and then a caravan in Spain as he travelled over from hometown Kurri Kurri to the big time.

At the start of the year, most onlookers, Rossi included, thought that Dani Pedrosa, the double 250cc world champion, would be the main threat. Pedrosa, with a new chassis on his Repsol Honda, was third here, to suggest that he is nearing peak form, but Stoner now leads Rossi by 14 points in the race for the title, with Pedrosa a further 28 points adrift.

Pedrosa’s teammate, Nicky Hayden, the world champion, is a distant eleventh. Just as surprising, the once all-conquering Repsol Honda are fourth in the team standings, making criticism that they rested on their laurels after Hayden’s success last season increasingly valid.

There were few portents of the drama to come as Rossi made a mess of his start to drop from pole position to fourth; it may or may not have been down to the late night he had enjoyed in the club president’s box at Barcelona’s match against Espanyol at the Nou Camp. Pedrosa led briefly, but Stoner showed his power on the straight and the race set into a pattern, with the leading three and John Hopkins, of Rizla Suzuki, breaking everyone else.

The last third of the race turned into a thriller because Stoner had to contend with enormous pressure from the Italian. His coolness in the latter stages debunked his crasher myth and drew warm praise from Rossi, who has not always been so enamoured of his rivals. Indeed, it was here six years ago that he indulged in a post-race punch-up with Max Biaggi behind the podium. Rossi, though, respects Stoner. “Casey did not make a single mistake,” Rossi said.

The championship may become a battle between the sorcerer and the apprentice and the sauce of the apprentice was evident from the way Stoner reacted to his first win in Qatar by saying that he viewed Rossi as “just another guy”. If it sounded cocky, it seems to work as this was Stoner’s fourth win in seven races.

There were guts aplenty elsewhere yesterday, too. Randy de Puniet, of France, qualified second and finished fifth on the Kawasaki, despite riding in bespoke leathers because of “a balloon of blood the size of a football” on his knee.

Earlier, Roberto Locatelli, the Italian who spent a week in a coma in March, was twelfth in the 250cc race, while Bradley Smith, Britain’s teenage prodigy in the 125cc class, impressed again and was sixth.

It was Stoner’s day, though. After the unflappable Australian dismounted, he shook hands and then said that he had needed to go to the toilet since the first lap. He is controlling everything at the moment.

Results

Seventh round: Leading final positions: MotoGP: 1, C Stoner (Aus, Ducati) 43min 16.907sec; 2, V Rossi (It, Yamaha) 43:16.976; 3, D Pedrosa (Sp, Honda) 43:17.297; 4, J Hopkins (US, Suzuki) 43:24.721; 5, R De Puniet (Fr, Kawasaki) 43:34.760; 6, L Capirossi (It, Ducati) 43:36.316; 7, C Vermeulen (Aus, Suzuki) 43:36.402; 8, A Barros (Br, Ducati) 43:41.769; 9, M Melandri (It, Honda) 43:41.870. Championship positions: Drivers: 1, Stoner 140pts; 2, Rossi 126; 3, Pedrosa 98; 4, Melandri 75; equal 5, Hopkins and Vermeulen 72. Manufacturers: 1, Ducati 143pts; 2, Yamaha 126; 3, Honda 125. 250cc: 1, J Lorenzo (Sp, Aprilia) 40min 51.620sc; 2, A De Angelis (S Mar, Aprilia) 40:54.814; 3, A Dovizioso (It, Honda) 41:02.216. Championship positions: Drivers: 1, Lorenzo 153pts; 2, Dovizioso 117; 3, De Angelis 115. Manufacturers: 1, Aprilia 170pts; 2, Honda 117; 3, KTM 50. 125cc: 1, T Koyama (Japan, KTM) 41min 6.339sec; 2, G Talmacsi (Hun, Aprilia) 41:6.388; 3, R Krummenacher (Switz, KTM) 41:6.47;. Championship positions: Drivers: 1, Talmacsi 115pts; 2, H Faubel (Sp, Aprilia) 12; 3, L Pesek (Cz, Derbi) 94. Manufacturers: 1, Aprilia 165pts; 2, Derbi 12; 3, KTM 71.

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