On Sunday, September 24, 2007 at the Japanese Grand Prix at the Motegi circuit, Casey Stoner not only made history by winning the 2007 MotoGP World Championship, amazingly, he became the first rider to win the title on a European-manufactured motorcycle since Phil Read did the deed in 1974 (on a 500cc-motivated MV Agusta).

“Very nice,” smiled Stoner, the champion. “I really don’t know what to say. We didn’t really expect to win the championship here. We thought we’d go out and give it a go and try to score some more points. But to come out and win the championship with still three rounds to go, it’s an absolute dream. Just to win the championship’s a dream. It’s nice that we can, I suppose, give the people that believed in me a gift, which is this World Championship, and to prove to the people that didn’t believe in me we can do it. "It proves that if you never give up anything can happen.”

For Ducati — the Italian-based bike builder — this Sunday afternoon at Motegi was made all the more special as Loris Capirossi won the Japanese Grand Prix in lights out to checkered flag fashion. It wasn’t as easy, though, as the Grand Prix was initiated on a wet track — and a track that would dry out as the 24-lap affair wound down towards its conclusion. At one point during the somewhat chaotic race, Capirossi pitted to get slicks and took from that point forward, took total control of the race on lap number 15.

“I came in to get slick tires, but there was some problem with the bike; I think the steering damper,” explained the Italian rider after the race. “I had to loosen up the steering damper because I kept running wide into the corners. From that point on I wasn’t so confident, but I saw Valentino (Rossi) also had a problem and we had an advantage. I started to relax a little bit more after that and concentrated on finishing the race, staying in the dry lines, and everything worked.”

When all was said and done, Capirossi crossed the finish line 10.853 ahead of runner-up Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet. For De Puniet, as well as the lime green motorcycle brand, the podium finish was of cause for great joy.

“When I saw on my pit board I was in second, I was really surprised, but to be on the podium in Japan for Kawasaki and Bridgestone is perfect,” de Puniet said of Kawasaki’s first 800cc podium position. Gresini Honda’s Toni Elias placed third overall to fill the third podium stop, while Sylvain Guintoli was fourth and Marco Melandri was fifth.

Stoner, who rode a safe and conservative race was happy to finish in sixth as the points he earned were more than enough to guarantee him the title over adversary Valentino Rossi. Rossi, who struggled with the went to dry track conditions, finished a lowly 13th, his 2007 MotoGP World Championship hopes dashed with the off-song result.