Today, on the lengthy, 3.447-mile Kuala Lumpur circuit — complete with four slow curves followed by two long straights and 10 medium-to-high speed corners — Marlboro Ducati’s Casey Stoner won the Malaysian Grand Prix, his 10th strike of what has become a truly remarkable season for the young Australian.

“The biggest battle I had was being in front by myself and not having anything to really focus on,” Stoner explained after the GP, sweating profusely from the unearthly heat and humidity. “I’ve been fine with it all year, but this track seems to just take that bit out of you a little bit more.

“Probably until halfway through the race, the bike, everything, was performing really well and then I had a couple of close front end loses, one very close to coming off and I said, now I’ll just try to back it off and keep a similar pace, but with some different lines and different riding techniques.

“But, you know, the bike, everything, was capable of doing it today and, you know, as I crossed the line I started to feel a bit dizzy, so it was definitely a hard race but one that I’m going to enjoy, I think.” The second spot on the rostrum was granted to Gresini Honda satellite rider Marco Melandri, his second runner-up finish in 2007. Melandri’s position was hard earned as he was forced to battle for the spot with Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Team Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet before finally clearing out.

“It's been a huge weekend for me,” Melandri said. “And it’s been always the worst track for me of the season, Sepang. But this year, for sure it’s been the best race I’ve had with the 800; it’s been amazing.” Dani Pedrosa shadowed Marco Melandri right to the finish line, though, coming up a mere .6 secs. Short. De Puniet placed fourth and Valentino Rossi and his Fiat Yamaha were fifth.

Gresini Honda’s Toni Elias placed sixth ahead of Rizla Suzuki men Chris Vermeulen and John Hopkins.

"It was a tough race and I am totally exhausted!" Vermeulen said. "I got in a little battle with a few guys at the start, but John and myself both made little mistakes and we dropped back a couple of spots. I also had a bit of a vibration issue with the bike under acceleration and it took me a while to figure out how to ride fast with that. I just got my head down and pushed as hard as I could and then I saw on my pit-board that it was plus-zero with John and it stayed that way for the whole race! We passed each other a number of times and I eventually got in front and held him off.”

Americans Nicky Hayden and Colin Edwards — Edwards visibly worked over from the heat — finished out the top 10.