Toseland battles back to ninth

James Toseland fought back from his disappointing British MotoGP the weekend before to finish ninth in Assen, Holland, on Saturday.

It's been a tough weekend for the Ramsey resident as he struggled with his Tech 3 Yamaha team to find a good race set-up.

"We're having a bit of a tough period at the moment," said Toseland. "We tried something totally different with the bike here today and although it wasn't quite right, we are starting to make headway. We were back in the top ten, which is important, but I've still got a lot of work to do.

"I apologise to the fans because I know it must be frustrating to watch but I am committed to working my hardest to continue to improve and get the bike to where we need to be. It hasn't helped that we've had changeable weather at the last two events either because we have such a short space of time to get the bike right. "

The MotoGP World Championship was blown wide open by two big events on the very first lap of the 26 lap race.

First Championship leader Valentino Rossi crashed bringing down Frenchman Randy De Puniet on just the third turn of the race.

Secondly World Champion Casey Stoner took the lead going into the final chicane at the end of the first lap and the World Champion and his Marlboro Ducati were never seen again by the remainder of the field as he secured his second grand prix win in the space of six days.

Rossi remounted his Fiat Yamaha to finish 11th but he lost his World Championship lead.

Spaniard Dani Pedrosa's second place on the Repsol Honda was enough for him to take over at the front by just four points from Rossi but it's Stoner who is making real progress.

The 22 year old Australian trails Pedrosa by just 29 points at the half way stage of the season and is right back in the hunt.

The drama continued right to the chequered flag with Colin Edwards grabbing third place from Nicky Hayden on the line when the former World Champion's Honda expired.

Results:

1 1 Casey STONER AUS DUCATI 42'12.337

2 2 Dani PEDROSA SPA HONDA 42'23.647

3 5 Colin EDWARDS USA YAMAHA 42'29.462

4 69 Nicky HAYDEN USA HONDA 42'32.814

5 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA HONDA 42'39.683

6 48 Jorge LORENZO SPA YAMAHA 42'40.945

7 7 Chris VERMEULEN AUS SUZUKI 42'44.667

8 56 Shinya NAKANO JPN HONDA 42'47.229

Championship positions:

1 PEDROSA Dani 171

2 ROSSI Valentino 167

3 STONER Casey 142

4 LORENZO Jorge 114

5 EDWARDS Colin 98

6 DOVIZIOSO Andrea 79

7 HAYDEN Nicky 70

8 TOSELAND James 60