Casey Stoner back in action this weekend

[mx250]

That's because everyone can see ,Rossi finaly has some stiff competition with riders at the top of their game, immune to purile mind games and not on the downside of their careers.
I hear OCC will fabricate the frame for the next Ducati

I caught the end of an interview with JB on channel Ten. One of the interesting observations he made was 'they are on the same tyres, with the same wheels, the same brakes, the same suspension.....and Ducati is the one having trouble' (implying the chassis type was the only difference).

Here's another interesting view. The start (and Casey's overtake) is more uphill than it appears on the TV.

[Lozza]

Ha ha.. Rossi won the championship first year on the Yamaha that hadn't won a title for many years, even his team mates on the same bike couldn't win races.
Stoner has been in Moto GP for about 6 years for his 1 title.
Lorenzo, Stoner and Pedrosa are very good but only time will tell if any of them can beat Rossi's achievements.

04 Rossi got the choice of 4 different engine configurations, with his choice being Furusawa's baby the 4 valve cross plane crank engine(when corporately welded to 5valve with 2 up 2 down configuration). In 06 the M1(in Rossi's words) "de bike ee get very smart" with the most sophisticated electronics package ever seen. Compare this to 02 when the M1 arrived with 930cc and still running carburetors. No other Yamaha rider ever got that sort of backing.
Stoners first year in MotoGP was on a satelite bike with crap off the shelf tyres, Ramon Forcada reckons Stoner did a good a job as he could have.Won second year in MotoGP.Lets see Rossi's record after 5 yrs on the Ducati
We seen at Sachsenring what Rossi can do without JB holding his hand, out qualified a injured Loris Caparossi in 16th place and finished 2 seconds ahead of Hector Barbera on a customer bike.
Rossi/JB have dug a hole so big the only thing that will get them out is painting a M1 red and putting Ducati stickers on it.The 90deg V has a lot to do with it as well, problem will be if the decision to move away from the frameless concept and 90 deg V goes away from the Ducati Corse and becomes a management decision as those 2 things are Ducati's DNA.

[TooFastTim]

In his autobiography Rossi was quite complimentary about the Yamaha when he first got on to it. He said it was much better than most people thought. It was, he felt, put together by a committee and needed the touch of a "master" to make it complete.

[Curly3]

How good is Casey going?
Touch wood, he can go on with it and prove that his win several years ago was definitely not a fluke.
Where are the Dukes by the way?

[mx250]

How good is Casey going?
Touch wood, he can go on with it and prove that his win several years ago was definitely not a fluke.
Where are the Dukes by the way?

Go Casey   .

And how bad is Rossi going. He should have listened to Casey last year rather than try to take the opportunity to bag him out. Casey said the chassis was at the limit of development and Ducati needed a new chassis to make progress.

I think at every track Casey's last year's race times were faster than Rossi's.

[vmx42]

How good is Casey going?
Touch wood, he can go on with it and prove that his win several years ago was definitely not a fluke.
Where are the Dukes by the way?

Go Casey   .

And how bad is Rossi going. He should have listened to Casey last year rather than try to take the opportunity to bag him out. Casey said the chassis was at the limit of development and Ducati needed a new chassis to make progress.

I think at every track Casey's last year's race times were faster than Rossi's.

It certainly has been a great investment by Ducati - not.    To be going slower than they were last year with the huge investment they have made must be driving them nuts.

I remember Ross Brawn saying that, dollar for dollar, Schumacher was the best money Ferrari ever spent - cheaper than a new wind tunnel, or additional engineers, etc. If his lap times don't improve then perhaps Rossi will have to pay Ducati to allow him to ride the bike. I bet Lorenzo is so happy he stayed where he was and didn't go for the big bucks.

Casey must just smile and mumble "I told you so" everytime he goes anywhere near Rossi/Burgess/Ducati.

Go #27!!!!!

[Freakshow]

A freind of mine does Photos at the GP's and sends me pictures, the first thing that stood out when he sent some from that round was the angles in many of the pictures.   No longer is it all about knee sliders, i reckon next stoner willl need elbow sliders. 

That is some serious angles and he aint that tall either.
 

[Lozza]

Lean angles are around 65 deg max. The 1000fps footage  Stoner make two wheel drifting look like anyone could do it.

[TooFastTim]

Freaky: that is a seriously good pic.

[VMX247]

Go Casey  

[Tony T]

Jean Philippe Ruggia was the first bloke I ever saw scraping his elbows. Must a have been 15 years ago, I reckon.
I've scraped my elbows more than once on both dirt and bitumen........... unfortunately I was also scraping my helmet at the same time.... 

[Hardex]

Well done again Casey But how good was Moto 2 ?Best race of the year by far .The first 14 laps were like the last lap .

[mx250]

Great ride, great win; but how poxy is the livery .

I take it that it was special livery to celebrate the likely 100th Repsol Honda win, and yet it doesn't have the vaguest visual association with the last 20 years of Repsol Honda's . And it looks poxy to boot. Go figure.

Some one in Repsol Honda marketing just got an 'F' - and probably the heave ho .

Its a good thing poor taste didn't slow the Honda or Casey .

[Lozza]

I'm the odd one out but the paint job grew on me. Millimeter perfect in that shot hugging the white line on the inside. Ducati going great with all the ace development work

[tony27]

Speaking of Ducati, now that Rossi has broken the number of allowable engines rule will he be starting 10 seconds behind everyone else from the pit lane or is that a 1 off? Goes to show how desperate they're getting to prove that Stoner wasn't trying last year like certain people reckoned