MotoGP » Stoner vs. Stoner, sympathy for Rossi.

Saturday, 28th June 2008

MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner annihilates Dutch TT opposition. Mistake by Valentino Rossi puts Australian back in title contention.



Casey Stoner was feeling nervous before Saturday's Assen race, but only because he knew it would take a mistake by him to lose the Dutch TT.

The reigning MotoGP world champion has been in unstoppable form since an engine management breakthrough at the post-Catalunya test, resulting in a commanding victory last Sunday at Donington Park.

Qualifying at Assen had seen Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi get surprisingly close to Stoner, but the young Australian always felt his race pace was untouchable - and so it proved.

After passing Pedrosa at the end of the opening lap, Stoner guided his Desmosedici to a 11.310secs victory over the Repsol Honda rider.

"We knew we had the pace to win today but sometimes coming into race day that can make you even more nervous because you know the only thing that can go wrong is yourself!" said Casey.

"I was also worried about the weather and after watching the 125 race I thought it would be typical to start raining whilst I was in the lead. Thankfully that wasn't the case and I was able to get out front, put my head down and concentrate on doing the times we've been doing all weekend in dry conditions," he added.

The Australian's third victory of the year means he is now 29 points from Pedrosa, who is also the new world championship leader after Valentino Rossi fell on the opening lap in Holland and could only manage eleventh.

Rossi is now 25 points in front of Stoner, having been 45 ahead of the #1 at the start of the race.

"I'm sorry Valentino crashed because this isn't necessarily the way I wanted to recover points on him, but at the end of the day we've had our fair share of bad luck this year too and racing is an unpredictable game," stated Stoner. "Now it seems fortune is favouring us but more than that I've really got to take my hat off to Ducati and to my team. They've been doing such a good job over the past few races to get us back on the pace again and make us consistently competitive, so I want to say 'thank you' to all of them."

"Stoner wins BMW." - x roadies

[More Pictures]

Stoner wins BMW.

Sunday, 17th February 2008

The special 40-minute 'qualifying' session held on Sunday at Jerez saw an awesome performance by world champion Casey Stoner, as the Ducati Marlboro collected his second brand new BMW in four months.

Stoner won his first BMW sports car at the 2007 Valencia season finale, when he wrapped up the best qualifier of the season award, and the Australian picked up where he left off at a wet Jerez.

Casey instantly stamped his authority on the slowly drying track, literally overtaking title rival Valentino Rossi in the early stages before pulling a huge 3.2secs clear of the competition after just five laps.

Stoner then sat calmly in the pits, with his arms crossed, to see if anyone could get near his mark. They couldn't, but Stoner returned to the track for the final five minutes just in case, by which time his lead was still 1.5secs, now over countryman Anthony West.

The closing stages saw Nicky Hayden, and then Rossi, emerge as best of the rest behind Stoner - but the seven-times world champion, riding with Bridgestone tyres in the wet for the first time today, was left 1.3secs behind Stoner's early lap.

Honda rider Hayden 0.2secs further back as the top Michelin rider, while West was bumped back to fourth for Kawasaki.

Top rookie was JiR Scot Team's Andrea Dovizioso, two seconds behind Stoner, while Honda Gresini's Shinya Nakano, Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi, LCR Honda's Randy de Puniet, Alice Team's Sylvain Guintoli and Stoner's team-mate Marco Melandri completed the top ten.

Melandri, who fell this morning, was 2.9secs slower than a smiling Stoner, who received a round of applause when he returned to the Ducati pits - before being presented with his new Z4 M Roadster.

Injured riders John Hopkins and Dani Pedrosa chose not to risk further damage and sat out the session.

'Normal' testing will resume at 3.15pm local time and continue until the track closes at 6.00pm. The Jerez test concludes on Monday.


BMW Award:

1. Stoner
2. Rossi
3. Hayden
4. West
5. Dovizioso
6. Nakano
7. Capirossi
8. de Puniet
9. Guintoli
10. Melandri
11. de Angelis
12. Toseland
13. Vermeulen
14. Edwards
15. Jacque
16. Lorenzo
17. Guareschi
18. Canepa
19. Elias

winter moto gp news

# New Kawasaki signing John Hopkins was the fastest rider on day two of the Sepang test.Hopkins, eighth on day one, used a late lap to edge out former team-mate Chris Vermeulen by 0.144secs at the conclusion of the second day in Malaysia, with day one leader Randy de Puniet demoted to a still impressive third for HondaLCR. Kawasaki revealed that there will be no 'new' machine for 2008."What the're doing is to keep improving on what they have now and get new parts throughout the winter. So they'll always have new parts to test, but there won't be a completely different bike or anything like that."

# Nicky Hayden put 65 more laps on the new 2008 spec Honda RC212V during day two of testing at Sepang - and killed a Cobra in the process! Hayden's knee collided with an unfortunate snake at Turn 11 of the 5.548km circuit. The Repsol Hondarider emerged unscathed from the encounter but the snake was not so lucky..."I smoked my first snake, the poor thing," confirmed Nicky. "I was just heading through turn 11 when the snake sat up and I saw it but I was committed on the apex of the corner. I picked the machine up and tried to avoid him but caught him with my knee. I'm pretty sure it was a cobra and I'm sorry for it."

# MotoGP riders to undertake final 2007 tests at Jerez from 27-29 November.

Suzuki is the only factory not present in Spain, having instead chosen to develop its GSV-R at Phillip Island in Australia.

Rossi will be back on two wheels this week, during testing at Jerez, when he is due to ride with Bridgestonetyres for the first time.

winter moto gp news

# New Kawasaki signing John Hopkins was the fastest rider on day two of the Sepang test.Hopkins, eighth on day one, used a late lap to edge out former team-mate Chris Vermeulen by 0.144secs at the conclusion of the second day in Malaysia, with day one leader Randy de Puniet demoted to a still impressive third for HondaLCR. Kawasaki revealed that there will be no 'new' machine for 2008."What the're doing is to keep improving on what they have now and get new parts throughout the winter. So they'll always have new parts to test, but there won't be a completely different bike or anything like that."

# Nicky Hayden put 65 more laps on the new 2008 spec Honda RC212V during day two of testing at Sepang - and killed a Cobra in the process! Hayden's knee collided with an unfortunate snake at Turn 11 of the 5.548km circuit. The Repsol Hondarider emerged unscathed from the encounter but the snake was not so lucky..."I smoked my first snake, the poor thing," confirmed Nicky. "I was just heading through turn 11 when the snake sat up and I saw it but I was committed on the apex of the corner. I picked the machine up and tried to avoid him but caught him with my knee. I'm pretty sure it was a cobra and I'm sorry for it."

# MotoGP riders to undertake final 2007 tests at Jerez from 27-29 November.

Suzuki is the only factory not present in Spain, having instead chosen to develop its GSV-R at Phillip Island in Australia.

Rossi will be back on two wheels this week, during testing at Jerez, when he is due to ride with Bridgestonetyres for the first time.

Latest news from Moto gp 07 - 08 Winter testing

# World Champion Casey Stoner fastest in opening pre-season test in Valencia.

# Konica Minolta, title sponsor of JiR for the past three seasons, will not back Gianluca Montiron's Honda team during the 2008 MotoGP World Championship.

# YAMAHA APOLOGISES TO ROSSI

Yamaha has apologised to Valentino Rossi for the engine problem that robbed him of second place in the 2007 MotoGP World Championship - but isn't sure exactly what went wrong.

"We would like to say sorry to Valentino because he made a great effort to race with his broken hand," said team director Davide Brivio. "Unfortunately a technical problem stopped him from getting the second place and we're very sad about this. Our engineers are doing everything they can now to understand what happened today, because Valentino felt that he had a problem and that the engine was not working properly. From our first analysis we are not yet sure what the problem was, so we have decided to send the engine back to Japan for further investigation."

# Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) has confirmed that the Repsol Honda Team will remain on Michelin tyres for the 2008 MotoGP season.

# MICHAEL SCHUMACHER ON A MOTO GP BIKE

Just one day after the season-ending Valencian Grand Prix, Schumacher took to the same twisty Spanish circuit on board Casey Stoner's 800cc Desmosedici.He finished the Spanish track in a best lap time just five seconds behind Pedrosa's race record of 1min 32.748secs! Schumacher's 1min 37.9secs also put the former Ferraridriver three seconds a lap from the back of the MotoGP field. Michael was 'coached' by former 500GP star Randy Mamola during his extended session, which lasted for most of the afternoon.

# 2008 Honda RC212V, the new motorcycle features pneumatic valves, as already used by Suzuki and Kawasaki - and rejected by Yamaha. The bike is described as an evolution of the 2007 machine , but features a new V4 engine with, as rumoured, pneumatic valve springs, plus an all-new chassis and exhaust system.

Motegi MotoGP reaction:.. Bridgestone`s delight at Casey Stoner’s MotoGP victory

Casey Stoner's MotoGP title has made Bridgestone boss Hiroshi Yamada a happy man


Bridgestone boss Hiroshi Yamada hailed Casey Stoner and Ducati as the Japanese tyre company celebrated a historic milestone in yesterday’s Japanese MotoGP.Casey Stoner’s sixth place in a rain-hit Twin Ring Motegi clash secured him a first premier class success after Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi’s disastrous 13th.And the Aussie also secured Ducati’s first MotoGP triumph in only their fifth year in the premier class.There were also huge celebrations at Bridgestone as they won a MotoGP world title for the first time, which was made all the more sweeter as it came on home soil in Japan.An emotional Hiroshi Yamada, who was in tears at the end yesterday’s 24-lap race, said: “It was a fantastic day and I really have no words to describe it.“I’m very happy we have done this achievement with Ducati, because they joined us when perhaps we were not the best tyre in MotoGP. This is the third year and I’m sure without Ducati we would not have had such good results, that’s 100 per cent sure.“I want to say thanks for their effort and their great decision in 2004 to work with us.”Hiroshi Yamada said he had got so emotional after the race as his mind cast back to some dark days for Bridgestone in MotoGP. One of the worst moments was when Shinya Nakano suffered a tyre blowout at 200mph on the Mugello straight in 2004.Since then Bridgestone has grown in prominence in MotoGP, and this season they have emerged into the dominant tyre brand, winning 10 races against Michelin’s five.Yamada said: “I remember many things from the past, bad things that happened to us.“Many people worked together with us and I remembered all the faces of these people and all the effort they put in after bad memories like Mugello in 2004 with Shinya’s big crash.“My head was spinning. When Casey crossed the line I was so happy. It was a very difficult race and hard to know what was going on.“Before the race in the wet I had confidence in Casey but when it started to dry out then I didn’t know what was going to happen.“Once Rossi passed Casey I though ‘shit, we are not going to win the championship in Japan.’ But God was on our side.”Source:- Motorcyclenews