Casey Stoner has notched his third MotoGP win in succession, prevailing in a wet and wild German MotoGP at Sachsenring.The Australian benefitted from an early fall from Dani Pedrosa, and then held off Valentino Rossi to make it three consecutive wins, while Stoner's compatriot Chris Vermeulen enhanced his reputation as the 'Rain King' by taking third, his best effort of 2008.
Pedrosa, who led the race by seven seconds before sliding off, wasn't the only one to slip up in the wet conditions, with Colin Edwards, Jorge Lorenzo and Marco Melandri also crashing out. But the Spaniard's error sees him slip out of the lead in the world championship, with Rossi now 16 points clear of Pedrosa, while Stoner is on 167, another four points behind.
Stoner's success now sees him within 20 points, and the psychologically-important one GP win, of the championship leader after being all but written off after a poor first few races of the season. He had trailed Rossi by 50 points before this winning streak.
The Australian, who had crashed himself in practice on Friday, was faultless in the treacherous conditions and while he clearly caught a break when Pedrosa made his error, he was the dominant rider of the race, cruising away to win by over four seconds.
Rossi, who had fallen himself in the previous race at Assen, was solid, but never really looked likely to defeat Stoner, while Vermeulen powered through from near the back of the grid to take his first podium since last year's San Marino GP.
Alex de Angelis, riding the Gresini Honda, just missed out on his first-ever podium, taking fourth, while Andrea Dovizioso was fifth on the JiR Team Scot Honda. Sylvain Guintoli was sixth, Loris Capirossi was seventh, while Randy de Puniet was eighth.
Anthony West capped off a fine race for the Australians when he finished 10th on his Kawasaki.
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