Dani Pedrosa started from pole position for the third time in season 2007 but it was newly crowned champion Casey Stoner that led the field through Phillip Island’s incredibly fast turn one for the first of 27 circuits of the coastal Victorian vista. The man he took the title from, Nicky Hayden, was on Stoner’s tail after getting a good run through the back of the circuit to clear out from Pedrosa, Rossi and Capirossi.

Valentino Rossi got the better of Pedrosa early on lap two to move up to third position but coming onto the main straight to start lap three Rossi ran wide over the ripple strip and had to get out of the throttle which lost him his drive and allowed Pedrosa to blast back by. Stoner and Hayden were straight down to a cracking pace with 30.9 second laps already on the board.

Hayden closed onto the tail of Stoner on lap three in a big turn up for the books. The Kentucky Kid had failed to fire all weekend in the mixed conditions but fine conditions on race day were obviously agreeable with the #69 and he was back on good terms with the Phillip Island circuit when it mattered.

Dani Pedrosa made a mistake on lap four that allowed both Rossi and Melandri through. Melandri set a new fastest lap of the race, a 30.80, clearly signalling his intentions. First target for the Gresini Honda man would be Valentino Rossi but Rossi was having none of it and actually went quicker than Melandri on the next lap to ease the pressure from his tail. Up front Hayden was still tailing Stoner while Rossi was starting to loom large in the background…

Pedrosa and Melandri were cutting each other up at every opportunity which had given Rossi some breathing space, it also allowed Loris Capirossi to start closing on that battle for fourth place to make it a three-way affair. Rossi was 1.9 seconds behind race leader Casey Stoner and 1.6 seconds behind Hayden with 21 laps to run.

A new fastest lap of the race to Rossi on lap seven, a 30.801 to Stoner’s 30.9, a little encroachment on the leader but it was going to take more than that from the Italian to get on terms with the front runners.

Pedrosa finally managed to escape the immediate advances of Melandri with 19 laps to run, but had more than a second to make up on Rossi if he was going to challenge for a podium position. Stoner pulled out another 30.9 on lap nine to extend his buffer over Hayden to half a second. Stoner dropped into the 30.8s next time around while Hayden had a disastrous lap and fell back into the clutches of Rossi, the Italian moved up to second place with 17 laps to run but was nearly two seconds behind season dominator Casey Stoner.

Indications were that Rossi did not have enough left in the bag to make any inroads into Stoner’s lead. The Australian continued to crack out 30.9s while Rossi and Hayden had drifted back into mid and high 31s. Stoner’s advantage with 15 laps to run was a considerable 3.55 seconds. The Ducati man on a soft front Bridgestone and hard rear. Heartbreak for the Kentucky Kid on the same lap when his Honda let go and nearly spat him down the road. The frustration of the American clearly evident, and understandable. Season 2007 for the Hayden camp has been a test of patience and it’s a credit to Hayden that he still manages to crack a smile 99% of the time.

While Hayden’s 2007 had been full of disappointment new World Champion Casey Stoner’s 2007 has been beyond the realm of any dream the 21 year old could have envisaged. A virtually flawless season with consistency the likes of which resembles the domination displayed by the last Australian to win the World Championship, Mick Doohan.

Stoner continued to reel off consistent high 30s and low 31s, a pace his pursuers could not match. Rossi was five seconds behind Stoner with 12 laps to run, his only hope of closing on on the Aussie would be if his medium compound front Michelin and hard rear hung in to the end while Stoner’s Bridgestones began to go off. On 2007 form that seemed unlikely, and Stoner looked set to break Michelins 100% win dominance at Phillip Island.

Dani Pedrosa was running the same compound Michelins as Rossi so no tyre difference were going to decide their fate. The Spaniard had also began to close in on the Italian as the race passed the halfway point. With ten laps remaining he had begun to crawl all over the back of Rossi’s Yamaha.

Pedrosa got Rossi on lap 17, the Honda getting into all sorts of ugly shapes as he wrenched every last ounce of speed from the 800cc RC212V Honda. The machine that everyone predicted would dominate in 2007, that instead turned out to be quite a disappointment, HRC only finding real speed from their mount in the latter half of the season.

Capirossi joined the Pedrosa-Rossi party on lap 18. The Ducati man running the same Bridgestone combination as Stoner but more than seven seconds behind his young teammate. At the beginning of the next lap Capirossi made an amazing move between turns one and two that saw him swoop past both Rossi and Pedrosa to move up to second place with eight laps to run.

Stoner was in a class of his own at the front of the field. The #27 Ducati out in clear air and enjoying the Phillip Island sunshine while his foes did battle for the minor steps on the rostrum some 7.5 seconds behind, nobody even close enough to smell the burnt Shell fumes bellowing from the rear of his Desmosedici.

Rossi was doing his best to stick on the tail of Capirossi and used a tow down the straight to better the Italian’s top speed. 310.7 km/h to Loris and 312.4 km/h to Valentino on lap 22. Out in front though Stoner cranked 317 km/h from his machine. A number only matched by Dani Pedrosa on the Honda as the Spaniard struggled to get back on fighting terms with Rossi.

Kawasaki’s encouraging pace on Friday and Saturday had failed to materialise on race day. De Puniet looked a likely challenger during qualifying but the warm race day conditions didn’t seem to agree with the Frenchman as he tussled with Hopkins over sixth position, and with three laps to run was more than 26 seconds down on the race leader. Melandri had lost some speed late in the race and drifted back amongst the Kawasaki and Suzuki men to be down in eighth place, a disappointment for the Italian after looking a likely podium proposition early in the race.

The final stages saw the pace slacken to the low 32s between the two Ducati men. Capirossi stretching his margin over Rossi out to a full two seconds with two laps to run. Only a major mistake could rob Ducati of the Phillip Island 1-2 and thus the manufacturer’s crown but that was not going to happen. Ducati’s engineering brilliance has come to the fore in season 2007, they came out of the blocks so hard that it left the opposition shell shocked. Stoner’s crown may have come even before his arrival in Australia, but the home win to give Ducati their first ever manufacturer’s title in the premier class was clearly the icing on the home soil Lamington cake. The first Italian company to take the manufacturer's crown since MV Agusta managed the feat in 1973.

Stoner the winner by 6.7 seconds ahead of Capirossi. Rossi rounded out the podium with a 1.5 second buffer over Pedrosa. Barros a strong fifth place ahead of De Puniet, Hopkins, Vermeulen, Edwards while Melandri just scraped into the top ten after losing pace throughout the race.

A record 115,058 fans visited Phillip Island over the three day weekend marking the biggest ever attendance at Phillip Island. The Sunday crowd figure 50,425. And with Stoner's beaming smile looking down from atop the podium it certainly rounded out a top weekend of action for the spectators, even if the weather gods were a little unkind earlier in the weekend.