Stoner back in gear and chasing island hat-trick
The Age
Thursday October 15, 2009
FOURTEENTH place at Donington Park in July was the final straw for frustrated MotoGP star Casey Stoner, who returns to Phillip Island this weekend in a bid to win his third straight home race.Stoner, who turns 24 tomorrow, started the year on a high by winning the opening race of the season under lights in Qatar. A fourth in Japan left him second in the championship behind Jorge Lorenzo and then things got ugly.His commitment to the sport has been questioned, his mental state debated and his relationship with Ducati openly discussed in the wake of his decision to have a complete 10-week rest from competition.The mystery illness that left Stoner feeling he'd become a danger on the track led former champion Wayne Gardner to say the Ducati rider's mid-season absence was "very suspicious," but Stoner is unrepentant.In Melbourne yesterday, on the eve of the Bass Coast race, Stoner said his chronic fatigue earlier in the year had been brought under control and he was confident of a strong performance in front of his home crowd.He said doctors had developed a course of treatment that would hopefully determine the cause of his problems, which until now had some in the racing world forecasting the 2007 world champion's retirement."It was getting to the point where we had a crash at Donington Park [in England] and I had no idea why," he said. "Mentally, that did destroy me a little bit. We knew we had a good bike to win races, I knew I was fast enough to win races and we just couldn't finish the job, we had no fight left in us."Despite being in a three-way fight for the championship with Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, Stoner accepted the advice of doctors and sat out races in Brno, Indianapolis and Misano.Less than a week ago Gardner told The Sunday Age he wished "there had been some sort of answer" to what was afflicting Stoner, but he was happy to see him back in the saddle and pushing for a hat-trick of wins at home.Stoner, who is experimenting with a sodium diet, said "no one had a clue what was going on, no one knew my situation" and therefore should not jump to conclusions about his condition. "It was something I never wanted to do, I never wanted to take the break, but it was becoming ridiculous. I was maybe becoming dangerous on the bike, I was so exhausted and it's not the best way to be out there racing."He snapped back into racing mode at the recent Portuguese Grand Prix with second place and is fourth in the overall championship."If we can get another good result this weekend we're going to be happy enough with that, but we're definitely going to be putting in for the win," he said.MOTO GP CHAMPIONSHIP THE TOP 101 VALENTINO ROSSI (Italy)Fiat Yamaha Team, 250 points2 JORGE LORENZO (Spain)Fiat Yamaha Team, 2323 DANI PEDROSA (Spain)Repsol Honda Team, 1734 CASEY STONER (Australia)Ducati Marlboro Team, 1705 ANDREA DOVIZIOSO (Italy)Repsol Honda Team, 1426 COLIN EDWARDS (USA)Monster Yamaha Tech 3, 1347 LORIS CAPIROSSI (Italy)Rizla Suzuki MotoGP, 978 RANDY DE PUNIET (FRance)LCR Honda MotoGP, 939 MARCO MELANDRI (Italy)Hayate Racing Team, 9110 TONI ELIAS (Italy)San Carlo Honda Gresini, 90
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