San Marino Grand Prix.

Australia's defending world champion Casey Stoner is already looking ahead to next year after his title hopes faded with a crash in Italy's San Marino Grand Prix.

Ducati rider Stoner crashed while leading on lap six as his Italian rival Valentino Rossi claimed a crucial victory at Misano.

Rossi leads the standings on 262 points ahead of second-placed Stoner on 187.

Five races remain, with 25 points awarded for a win.

Stoner, who was riding despite a painful hand injury, said he would battle on and have an operation at the end of the season.

"It is very disappointing for the weekend to end like this after showing such a high level of performance in practice," said Stoner, who was pole-sitter.

"Basically we took the decision to put one lap on the race tyre in warm-up this morning to get it scrubbed in.

"We've done it before and not had a problem but today I could feel from the first lap that the grip wasn't right.

"After a few laps it started to feel better and I was gaining confidence but it let go.

"It's a real shame but, anyway, we tried hard here and once again I think we've shown we are very fast, we have a great bike and tyres that work fantastically.

San Marino - the Series MotoGP was kept leaving six races more. Valentino Rossi then determined to sweep clean all these races by becoming the number of one. As far as this is concerned The Doctor already five times gained the peak of the podium. Rossi gained him in the series in China, France, Italia, and two finally was in two last United States races and the Czechoslovakian Republic.Resulting from his impressive appearance, he is currently superior 50 of the rivals terdekat him that also was the defending champion, Casey Stoner.

The Australian racing driver had personally said that maintained gelarjuara was something that was almost impossible for him at this time. Back to Rossi, although currently he is superior far, he did not want to relax.

For him, there was no race use if only to achieve the position of the number of two. He was justified that the race was still long and the finish in the position of two could made his position in classification be threatened."I had the big superiority, but still was too early to make the decision like that, race only for the place kedua,"he said as being launched by Autosport.

"First was because of the finish in the second position to be ketidakberuntungan. And the two were still having six series more and not two. We will try to appear like in the last race and tried overcame Casey,"he accused. "Street headed the end was still long. And I thought in the race this time (the San Marinoan series, red) will have several racing drivers who could approach me or Casey.