Casey Stoner's Retirement Announcement

Here's Casey Stoner's retirement annoucement verbatim. Yes, he's only 26 years old ... I guess he was on the "Freedom 26" retirement investment plan. Why didn't I think of that?

“Afternoon everyone.”

“Basically, this has come after a long time of thinking, a lot of time talking with my family and my wife. This has been coming for a couple of years now, but at the end of this 2012 season, I will be not racing in the 2013 championship. I will be finishing my career at the end of this season in MotoGP and go forward with something different with my life.”

“After so many years of doing the sport which I love, and which myself and my family made so many sacrifices for, after so many years of trying to get to where we have gotten to and this point. This sport has changed a lot, and it’s changed to the point that I’m not enjoying it, I don’t have the passion for it. So at this time, it’s better if I retire now. There’s a lot of things that have disappointed me and also a lot of things that I have loved about this sport, but unfortunately, the balance has gone in the wrong direction, and so basically I won’t be continuing any more. It would be nice if I could say that I will stay for just one more year, but then when does it stop? So we decided to finish everything as we are now.”


This is bound to have some impact on his performance over the rest of the season. How can he be motivated after comments like that? Seems to me he may have run into the same Honda corporate attitude that turned Rossi over to Yamaha. There's bound to be a book about this once he's off-contract ... will make an interesting read. I wonder if Simoncelli's crash last year increased pressure from family members to find a safer line of work. Anyway ... seems to me this is a boost to the Lorenzo camp. I would think that the only motivation left in Stoner might be to win the home round at Phillip Island at the end of the season to sign off in style.

IOM TT 2012 Is About To Start

Here we go ... practice starts tomorrow. Here's the schedule for this year's version of the greatest race on Earth:

PRACTICE WEEK

Saturday, May 26
Solo Newcomers (all solo classes) Speed Controlled Lap
Lightweight/Newcomers (all solo classes) Qualifying
Sidecar Newcomer Speed Controlled Lap
Sidecar Free Qualifying

Monday, May 28
Superbike/Superstock/Supersport/Newcomers (except Lightweight) Qualifying
Sidecar Qualifying

Tuesday, May 29
Superbike/Superstock/Supersport/Newcomers (except Lightweight) Qualifying
Supersport/Lightweight/ Newcomers (all solo classes) Qualifying
Sidecar Qualifying

Wednesday, May 30
Superbike/Superstock/Supersport/Newcomers (except Lightweight) Qualifying
Sidecar Qualifying

Thursday, May 31
Superbike/Superstock/Supersport/Newcomers (except Lightweight) Qualifying
Supersport/Lightweight/Newcomers (all solo classes) Qualifying
Sidecar Qualifying

Friday, June 1
Superbike/Superstock/Supersport/ Newcomers (except Lightweight) Qualifying
Sidecar Qualifying

RACE WEEK

Saturday, June 2
11am - Dainese Superbike TT Race
2pm - Sure Sidecar TT Race 1
Supersport/Lightweight Qualifying

Monday, June 4
10.45am - Monster Energy Supersport TT Race 1
Sidecar Qualifying
2pm - Royal London 360 Superstock TT Race

Wednesday, June 6
10.45am - SES TT Zero Challenge
1pm - Monster Energy Supersport TT Race 2
3.15pm - Sure Sidecar TT Race 2
Senior Qualifying
Lightweight Qualifying

Friday, June 8
10.45am - BikerPetition.co.uk Lightweight TT Race
1.30pm - PokerStars Senior TT Race

Wish I was there ... wish I LIVED there! Good luck with the weather.

Wet and Wild

Normally wet races aren't particulary exciting. The fast riders go slow to ensure a finish of some sort while middle of the pack riders bet everything, hoping for a rare podium finish. Not this time. Lorenzo has become an incredibly smooth rider since 2010. He's rock solid and carves beautiful lines around a race track. All that smooth as silk riding translated into pulling away from the pack on the rain-soaked LeMans circuit. Pedrosa had his usual rocketship start, but he just doesn't like the wet so faded after not too many laps. Stoner stayed just behind Lorenzo ... but he recently announced his retirement planned for the end of this season, so his motivation is down a peg or two.

Now comes Rossi. From a third row start, he found the Ducati extremely stable in the wet and seemed to have more control in the corners than he usually does on a dry track. This seemed to click somewhere deep in his cortex and the old Rossi was raised from the dead. He battled with Dovi and Crutchlow for third, but they both eventually had off-track excursions trying to keep up. With Stoner in his sights, and the odd lapper to get in Stoner's way, he managed to catch Casey and dice it out with deep, tight passes in slippery corners. It all paid off in the end and Rossi grabbed the second step on the podium. Amazing. It's hard to say whether making it to the front of the pack has rekindled his drive to win, or whether it was just a rainy day fluke. One of the best wet races ever.

It's hard to say what will happen next. Stoner's retirement might take the edge off his motivation and Rossi's success may bring him out of "retirement". Certainly the bike is up to the task and the wet weather handling improvement may offer some clues to finally fixing the dry track problems. It seems to imply the chassis is still too stiff. Then there's Lorenzo. He's a match for Stoner's speed and he's got the smooth lines of Biaggi ... except he doesn't crash. He's also now leading the points race by eight points. The next dry race will be interesting. If Lorenzo beats Stoner, then the 2012 Championship could be his.

Special mention goes to Cal Crutchlow. Albeit he has lots of rain-riding experience coming from the UK, but outside of the Rossi-Stoner battle, his chicane shortcuts and hard diving passes inside Dovizioso in waterlogged corners were the most exciting moments of the race.

And Again ... Estoril

Well, it's not looking good for an exciting 2012 MotoGP season. The CRT bikes have diluted the pack and if you're not Stoner, Lorenzo or Pedrosa, you bike is down a quart. The top three riders,Stoner, Lorenzo and Pedrosa in that order, did very little from start to finsih that was entertaining. Just plain old brilliant riders on brilliant bikes running 24 parade laps. Next came two excellent riders on pretty good bikes, Dovizioso and Crutchlow who could have been in contention for the podium if their second-level bikes were up to the task. Next were Baustista and Rossi, again, great riders on so-so bikes. This was Rossi's best race yet ... he actually looked confident and in control ... too bad the bike wasn't in the same league as the leaders. The CRT bikes aren't even in the race, with last place getting lapped by the leaders just before the finish. Lapped!? What is this ... AMA?

Ok, so I'm going to call it now. The podium will basically remain the same for the rest of the season, except for wet races. The "aliens" are down to three: Stoner, Lornzo and Pedrosa. There will be close races, but it seems that the Championship will end in the same order as the Estoril podium: Stoner, Lorenzo and Pedroa in that order. This is of course assuming that nobody DNF's or has injury issues.

If you really like bike racing, watch Moto2 this year.

Jerez - Stoner and Lorenzo

Work is very busy at the moment so I've only just had time to watch the Jerez race. By now you've probably seen it too so I won't repeat what you already know. I'm always amazed at Dani Pedrosa's ability to fire his bike off the line no matter what row he starts on. He did it again from row two launching himself into the early lead. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that he weighs less than his leathers?

Other things of note: how is it that Hayden has managed to figure out the Ducati to some degree and Rossi is still trolling around at the back of the pack? Maybe it's time to call it quits. The early laps of the race were quite amazing from a rider skill perspective. The bikes were bunched together, overlapped into corners, with various riders taking distinctly different lines ( yes I'm talking about you Cal ), but even with the banging, pushing and shoving, everyone stayed on in full control. Great bikemanship by all. And finally, although Lorenzo couldn't quite catch Stoner, he's sure looking smooth and solid. There's going to be lots of close racing between these two for the next little while.

Lorenzo It Is.

Well, after that Moto2 race, the MotoGP main class was a little sedate. As usual Pedrosa launched up into the top three from a third row start ... then with a little back and forth it settled into Stoner, Lorenzo, Pedrosa. Not much happened for quite some time other than to note that there were two completely separate races going on. After two laps, the CRT bikes were way back on their own, but not so slow that they ever got lapped. A lot of the bikes seemed to have problems with their Bridgestones and as predicted by many, tyres went off with about 6 laps to go. From that point on, Stoner's bike was sliding even with traction control. This probably contributed to arm pump in his right arm that took the wind out of his sails. Lorenzo motored under Stoner to take the lead, then Pedrosa slotted into second with a spectacular hard braking dive into turn one, his rear wheel waving well off the ground. There was a good contest between Cal Crutchlow and Dovi behind the leaders in the last few laps, with Crutchlow finally making the pass for fourth. Further back Hayden got the best of Barbera and Bautista to finish top Ducati. So, Lorenzo takes his first Losail GP after many attempts. I'm thinking he's going to give Stoner much more of a run for his money this year ... a bit of a combination of his wild riding of two years ago and his serious down to business riding of last year. Pedrosa looked in top form as well ... it's going to be a close three-way championship this year. Only problem is that we're down from 17 "real" MotoGP bikes to 12 and poor old Rossi is at the back of the pack.

Moto2!

Wow. Well, I thought the opening Moto3 race was exciting, but that was nothing compared to the opening Moto2! Eleven rows of three on the grid, close tight racing, aggressive, paint-swapping battles and passing, passing, passing. All the top riders pulled out all the stops and almost all ran wide at one time or another. Marquez pushed leader Luthi wide, who rejoined in 5th. Marquez then got passed by Iannone, then nipped him back at the line to take the win. Awesome race.