French disaster for Stoner

Casey Stoner's defence of his world championship hangs by a thread after a disastrous French MotoGP saw the Australian fail to pick up a point, while Valentino Rossi collected his second-straight victory to take the championship lead.

Stoner led the race early but Rossi powered past him and was never headed from that point, winning by five seconds. The Australian looked set for at least a podium finish, but rain at Le Mans put a spanner in the works.

His bike faltered badly with seven laps to go and he was forced to push it into the pits before changing bikes and heading back out. He finished 16th.

Rossi lead a FIAT Yamaha quinella with Jorge Lorenzo, nursing two fractured ankles, charging into second, while Colin Edwards claimed his first podium of the year, riding a consistent race to finish third, ahead of Dani Pedrosa, who relinquishes his championship lead, while Australian Chris Vermeulen had his best race for the year, finishing fifth.

Rossi, who collected his 90th GP win, leads the championship on 97 points, three clear of Pedrosa and Lorenzo who share second, while Stoner remains stranded back on 56 points, 41 off the lead and in fourth.

The race started well for Stoner, who came from third off the grid to lead Pedrosa and Edwards at the first turn. He looked to have a clear advantage on those two, but when Rossi pushed his way through to second with two laps it was clearly going to be the Italian's day.

The battle for the podium was intense and when the rain started to fall with ten laps remaining, it looked like the riders may have to come in and switch bikes. But they kept the faith, and worked hard just to keep the bikes on track.

But Stoner, who was third at that stage, raised his hand to indicate something had gone wrong as he crossed the start-finish line late in the race. He immediately slipped back to sixth with his engine spluttering and then had to jump off and push his bike when it stopped at the top of pit lane.

Stoner certainly wasn't the only rider to have a bad day, James Toseland crashed out early on and John Hopkins had a hairy moment when the chain snapped on his Kawasaki when he was close to top speed.

In the end, the Yamahas clearly handled to tricky conditions the better, filling the top three places while Pedrosa's Repsol fell off the pace to finish fourth. Vermeulen, a winner at Le Mans last year, rode an excellent race on the Rizla Suzuki to finish fifth, Andrea Dovizioso was sixth, Loris Capirossi seventh, Nicky Hayden eighth, Randy de Puniet ninth and Shinya Nakano tenth. Australia's Ant West picked up two points in 14th.

The day belonged to Rossi, who joined Angel Nieto on 90 GP wins in all classes. In brilliant scenes after the race, Rossi picked up Nieto on his Yamaha and let the former 80cc and 125cc champion drive him back to the pits.

He then joined Lorenzo and Edwards on the podium, with the young Spaniard unable to stand on the podium because of the injuries he sustained in Shanghai two weeks ago.