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Casey Stoner marked the start of his career at Ducati with a win, as he pipped Valentino Rossi in the first race of the MotoGP season in Qatar.

Though Rossi began in pole position, Stoner had soon caught up with his more experienced rival and seemed to have a speed advantage over him, yet the Italian came to the fore on the trickier parts of the Losail course.

The two riders exchanged the lead a number of times, but ultimately it was the young Australian who came up trumps as an outstanding final lap saw him finish more than a quarter of a second ahead of the Yamaha man.

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Stoner said afterwards: "We couldn't ask for much more; it was my first time racing with Ducati and Bridgestone, a perfect start.

"I couldn't be happier with the weekend, the team worked perfectly and the bike and tyres were perfect in the race. We had a bit of a speed advantage and though we had some dramas in other parts of the track, I played to the strengths of the bike and was able to do some pretty fast lap times."

A stunned Rossi paid tribute to his rival's "perfect" performance and admitted that although he had tried to apply the pressure to Stoner throughout the race, he was simply unable to force him into an error.

It was the 21-year-old's second ever podium finish in MotoGP and it has put him on top of the competition for the time being, but as Stoner himself noted, "it's only the first race of a very, very long year".

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