Casey Stoner is the most successful rider of the 800cc MotoGP era, he was won two titles, the first and last one and has more victories than Valentino Rossi who also took two championship titles during this period.
It’s commonly known that Stoner has little use for the media especially the Euro ones (who are more biased and often defend their countries riders even beyond belief) and detests all the PR that surrounds MotoGP and it’s no secret that he doesn’t like Rossi (which is an understatement) and European riders in general.
So it won’t come as a surprise that after a nice and rather bland interview with the official MotoGP website that an interview with Italy’s Motosprint magazine would be more revealing and much more biting.
On the media: “Everything has changed very quickly.
Previously I’d get nothing but mistrust from the media, and generally very little consideration for what I was doing and all the effort I was putting in and then Valentino and I switched bikes.
He was on the one that I used for four years, and I was on the bike of my dreams to show the world what I’m capable of doing.
This allowed me to let everyone understand that I could have also fought for the title and that I could have won at least another one.
” On arch rival Valentino Rossi: “Valentino is saying and doing everything to belittle what I, my team, Honda did last year.
It’s not true that Honda spent a lot of money, because it’s not a company of stupid people.
It would have made no sense to invest a lot on a bike, the 800cc, that would soon be retired, while the new 1000cc was being developed.
As a matter of fact in 2011 Honda didn’t do much more than usual and the proof is that the 2011 bike wasn’t so different from the 2010 one, except for the gearbox and my bike remained practically the same throughout the season.
The truth is that Honda already had a good bike even before my arrival, they just needed someone new to make the difference.
”If this interview doesn’t stir up Rossi and Pedrosa fans I don’t know what will and while I don’t expect some backlash from Pedrosa and Alberto Puig, I do expect something from Rossi.
