MotoGP News
Date: 25/October/2012
Casey Stoner destroyed the opposition with a stunning display of speed and skill during Friday’s practice sessions for his final home Australian MotoGP, at Phillip Island.
The Repsol Honda star left Championship contenders Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa trailing by almost one-second as he drifted his RCV around the sweeping turns of the Melbourne track.
Reigning double World Champion Stoner, whose own 2012 title hopes ended with ankle injuries at Indianapolis, hasn’t won since that brutal mid-August fall - but few would now bet against a sixth successive ‘Island MotoGP victory on Sunday.
Stoner, 27, who had turn three of the circuit named in his honour on Thursday, said:
“It was a very positive first day, we were pretty quick to get on the pace and to be honest I didn't expect to achieve the lap times we did. With the extra horsepower we have this year it's a little easier to get around this place quickly!
“I thought everybody would improve a lot more in the second session, but we were able to go quite a lot faster than everybody with almost race distance on our soft tyres and then we put the hard tyre on and were able to improve again.
“This is very positive at this stage of the weekend but we'll have to wait for tomorrow and Sunday to see where everyone else is. There are a lot less right hand corners here, so it's nice to take a bit of weight off my ankle.”
Stoner will retire after the final round of the year at Valencia.
Among those awestruck by Stoner’s Friday performance was injured Factory Yamaha rider Ben Spies, watching on TV in Texas after undergoing shoulder surgery.
Spies, who crashed last Sunday at Sepang and will miss the last two rounds, wrote on Twitter: “Gotta say without a doubt [Stoner] does stuff even GP racers watch and scratch their heads at! #pureclass.”
Spies’ team-mate and title leader Lorenzo was runner-up to Stoner by 0.905s in the morning session. Stoner’s team-mate Pedrosa then took over second place in the afternoon, but still 0.885s from the top.
Lorenzo, just 0.121s from Pedrosa in FP2, starts the penultimate round with a 23-point lead over his fellow Spaniard. Lorenzo basically needs to beat Pedrosa on Sunday to be crowned MotoGP Champion for a second time.
However, Pedrosa has won five of the last six races and hasn’t been beaten by Lorenzo - in races they have both finished - since July. Pedrosa, Stoner and Honda have all denied that team orders will be employed to help Pedrosa.
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