Stoner shakes his way to the top at Sepang

MotoGP News
Date: 5/March/2012

Reigning champion Casey Stoner proved he will again be the man to beat in MotoGP’s new 1000cc era, having continued his unbeaten 2012 run during the second test at Sepang in Malaysia.

But it wasn’t plain sailing for the Australian. Stoner had to overcome continued shaking problems with his new 1000cc Repsol Honda and missed day two when engine checks grounded all of the RCV riders.

Honda Racing boss Shuhei Nakamoto explained: “We stopped testing because we didn’t know exactly what had happened to cause the warning light on Dani Pedrosa’s bike (on day one) and if an engine blows up it is dangerous for the riders. Now we understand. The engine has no problem at all. We have not had to modify the engines or change the performance.”

Stoner returned for the final day to finish 0.175sec clear of Pedrosa at the head of the timesheets. The top five riders were covered by less than 0.52sec, but Stoner warned he was far from his limit.

Stoner said: “When I did my fast lap it was with 52 degrees of track temperature, the highest of the day, and 19 litres of fuel. So we’re pretty happy. We thought we could have gone faster this afternoon, but we’d finished everything so there was no need to risk anything.”

Another factor likely to worry his rivals is that Stoner stayed on top despite continued chatter problems with his Honda through the corners. The chatter (vibration) has been present ever since the latest Bridgestone tyres were fitted to the new Honda.

Stoner admits he may have to race with the issue: “The fact that we’ve had it this long and not really improved it means we might have to do race one, and maybe more, with the chattering.

“We’ll try and improve it, but if we can’t we’re still competitive.

“We’ve definitely got a few more tenths in us without the chatter, but my main concern is if we get to tracks where maybe we haven’t got the perfect feeling, the chatter will make it worse.”

Stoner will aim to complete a 2012 pre-season sweep during the third and final test at Jerez from March 23-25.