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MotoGP Features & Interviews (2007)
MotoGP Special Column - Stoner's Stunning Season
12/09/2007
The 2007 MotoGP season has surprised everyone except two people - Casey Stoner and his father, Colin. They just knew that they were going to be world champions.
They walked a fine line between confidence and arrogance when they left Australia, coming to Europe to race circuits as a means of progressing to Grand Prix racing.
Accidents were common in his first year in 250, but the speed was always there. That’s not a throwaway line. It always was.
Struggling at times on a Honda last year, he made the jump to Ducati this year with the new 800cc regulations.
Everything was new with the bike, the team, his chief engineer Cristian Gabbarini and the Bridgestone tyres. But all that was no problem. This was what he had been waiting for. He went out and beat Valentino Rossi in a straight fight.
The motorcycling world was stunned. And then he did it again and again clocking up eight wins from the 13 races at the time of writing. The title is now Stoner’s to lose.
Two of the memories I will take away from this season are the Aussie crossing the line in the wet at Donington shrugging his shoulders asking. “Where were the others?”.
The other was at Laguna Seca where 12 months earlier the Ducati had struggled with the boiling hot racetrack. Stoner went out there on Friday morning and blitzed them all. He was first in every session of the weekend right through to the chequered flag. Incredible…
Stoner is going to his home track at Phillip Island in Australia in mid-October and a win there will be the ultimate icing on the cake. Two years ago when leading the 250cc race, on his birthday, he crashed. Let’s hope he gets it right this time. All the stars are aligned.
So what of the others? Rossi fought back to win in Jerez, Mugello and Assen from nowhere on the grid, while Chris Vermeulen made it as one of a select few to win in World Superbike first and then MotoGP.
And if there was a nice guy World Championship, Chris would win it hands down by half way through every season. He won at Le Mans in monsoon conditions, his Bridgestones cutting through rain that was so hard it leaked into my television commentary box!
The resilience of Marco Melandri continues to wow as he got a podium at Laguna Seca with a broken ankle, as he discovered later! His strength will be rewarded with a Ducati works ride next season, something that will be exceptional to see with Stoner in the garage too. Will it be too small for the pair of them?
In the meantime looking towards the remaining five MotoGP races, Yamaha and Honda are beginning to fight back.
The Hondas with a less aerodynamic fairing are equalling Ducati’s top speeds, so the long straights of Estoril, Phillip Island and Malaysia will begin to come back for them. The same is true for Rossi’s Yamaha that has taken on a new air valve engine and a new slippery fairing too.
It looks like these remaining races will be anybody’s game!
Toby Moody is the English voice of MotoGP racing throughout Europe. Commentating on Eurosport TV for the past 12 seasons, he came through F1 and WRC, but is still involved in racing a single-seater at Shelsley Walsh and other speed hill climbs in the UK where his love for motor sport started.
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