Spotlight Casey Stoner - Moto GP memories

[Bally]

A quiet young man from my perspective. What he did with Ducati change the way GP races were conducted at the time. Pity the team didn't listen to him.

Tete au Tete with Valentino Rossi.

An entertaining Vid.

Kind regards,

Bally)

 

[Freija]

Brilliant video!

There's three main memories I have about Stoner: the Laguna Seca battle with Rossi shown in the video, the "ambition outweighs talent" remark at Jerez that I was watching live and knew he would be furious they also showed in the vid and Casey's utter frustration with the Ducati after fighting a fierce battle at Brno to the lead only to wash out the front end on the very last corner. I saw that as the last straw for him before switching back to Honda.

I also didn't know Alberto Puig was so formative early in his career. Puig is still around in the paddock as team manager for Honda but will be serving a different role in 2027

In spite of the records of other modern champions like Valentino and Marquez, people have never stopped talking about Casey Stoner and kind of like Jack Miller today, he's not afraid to say what's on his mind.

 

[Freija]

This weekend's round is Balaton Park in Hungary - the absolute worst track on the GP calendar but strongly rumored to be replaced by the Hungaroring next year. I'll be catching all the premier class sessions live through MotoGP's Videopass subscription which means my schedule will look like this:

Thursday night / Friday morning:

• 1:45 - 2:30 AM Free Practice 1 (FP1)
• 6:00 - 7:00 AM Practice (P1) this determines the top 10 riders who goes directly to Q2

Friday night / Saturday morning

• 1:10 - 1:40 AM Free Practice 2 (FP2)
• 1:50 - 2:05 AM Qualifying 1 (Q1) two riders advance to Q2
• 2:15 - 2:30 AM Qualifying 2 (Q2) 12 rider shootout for pole
• 6:00 - ? AM half distance sprint race (13 laps)

Saturday night / Sunday morning

• 2:00 AM Moto3 race (formerly 125's)
• 3:15 AM Moto2 race (formerly 250's)
• Prerace starts around 4:15
• 5:00 until about 6:15AM MotoGP Race and podium- 26 laps

It can probably go without saying but my sleep schedule will be weird for the next few days. Most all of the European races are on the same schedule so I likely won't see much change or get a break until Japan in October.

These days, beyond just knees, they drag elbows and shoulders at some tracks

 

[Freija]

Today's GP was won by Marc Marquez

Huge crash at the first turn took out the two riders leading the championship and two others

.