Stoner title hopes end in the gravel.

"This gives me confidence for next year and I'm looking forward to it already," said Stoner."

Sounds to me like he's already given up on 2008. Not saying it would be easy by any stretch of the imagination but mathematically, he's still in it 75 points down or not. If Rossi takes Indy (which is anybody's win for the taking) he'll have the championship sealed. But until then comments like this are best kept to yourself.

Rossi after his Valencia fall, 2006: "When you fall, is always a mistake..."
Stoner after his Misano fall, 2008: "The tyre just let go"

No matter how much I want to like Stoner, I just cannot. He doesn't help at all.

and Livio Suppo is so quiet now.

Seems like the only way to beat Rossi at the moment is to ride faster than it is possible to ride. Stoner is pushing himself and his bike beyond the limit. If he's got the top speed, he might be better off backing off very slightly and fighting with Rossi toe-to-toe. But I guess if he's to stand any chance of winning the championship he needs to go full tilt and hope for Rossi to get shuffled down the pack or DNF. Jack Mordino, I don't know how it's surprising that Stoner would say 'the tyre just let go' - that's exactly and obviously what happened, because he was pushing the bike, tyre and himself past the limit. If the tyre didn't let go, what do you think he did, jump off the bike?

Did you see ducati kick the camera men out the box? Randy has commented before on how they have slammed the shutters on him. Does stoner really think we believe his stories? Stone in the carb (thought they were fuel injected but anyway), footpeg hit the floor, dodgy front tyre, rossi tried to run me into the gravel etc etc etc

Theres something I dont like about the ducati team, especially after the way they treated Capirossi. Anyway, the title is back where it belongs and will be as long as Rossi keeps re signing his contract.

"This is racing? We'll see" - Casey Stoner, Laguna

skinny787 Rossi only needs 2 3rd and 1 2nd place in the next three races and he can go on holiday in the last two in order to win the championship.

Now, if you were anybody on that grid, would you believe you would have any viable chances on this championship?

Stoner looks mentally broken, 3 crashes in 3 races citing front tyre problems, are we back in 2006?

What a bad bad performance! True world champions do not chuck it down the road three races on the trot. Then to make matters worse we get the excuses.. its me tires..its the wrist.. the footpeg touched down. Hows about these ones. I am not as fast as I think I am or I'm quick till it hits the dirt!!!! Valentino must have been pishing himself laughing as he breezed by the aftermath. I think Casey should try using the tires he is going to use in the race to practice with, rather than softees to put in quick ones trying to fool the master. Its a shame really becuase Vale would have caught him if he'd stayed on four of the first seven laps we Vale's four out of six if you ignore the first.

Didn't many say on here earlier in the year that id Casey is put under preassure he bins it? if so it appears they was correct.

If any of you watched the morning warm up as i did then I presumed that today was just like the last 2 races, I find it very hard to beleive that casey can make the bike 0.7 faster than anyone else. However he does & he deserves a medal for it.

One thing I thought to myself was Casey's pace is blistering but how many laps can he do like that, if you look at rossi's race pace & practise times you can always see a clear pattern of fairly consistent laps.

When you look at Casey you tend to get the impression that he could be ejected from the seat at any time.

I think rossi has out psyched stoner like he did gibernau and the pressure is getting to him, good to see ducati wincing, melandri obviously does'nt have as much on his bike as stoner has, does hayden know what he is in for.

Shame really, as we need good close racing, it looks as though the championship will be all over before the last 3 rounds are played out.

all his crashing is just part of his being in the safety comity.
he is checking all the runoffs and gravel traps.

"Basically we took the decision to put one lap on the race tyre in warm-up this morning to get it scrubbed in: we've done it before and not had a problem… Said Stoner".

That explains the blistering starts and first couple of very fast laps, but dear Ducati, that does not last the whole race! To bin it or not to bin it?

He was bound to win it or bin it, no other options, 2nd place wouldn't have been that much use to him at this point.

Having said that he could have been better off trying to win it in a fight rather than trying to ride off into the distance. Personally I think he lost the WC on the podium at Laguna- since then he hasn't had it mentally in actual racing.

"Basically we took the decision to put one lap on the race tyre in warm-up this morning to get it scrubbed in: we've done it before and not had a problem"

Ok? Well, thats one lap?! Is it just me or did Stoner not bin it at less than half race distance? I highly doubt scrubbing a tyre over the course of one lap in morning warm up would be the cause of a crash so early on in the race especially when this tactic has been proven before or so they say. His story book is really starting to get on my wick, I really do try to give him credit for his speed during practice but I find it hard when he speaks so much crap

I hope Rossi wins the championship at Philip Island :-)

stoner should learn to fight in a close distance rather than running away for a win.

Hmm, this is interesting. It was OK for Rossi to blame everything on his Michelins or his Yamaha (or both) in '07 but if Stoner suggests he had a problem with front tyre grip and crashed as a result, he's 'talking crap'. Ah, but so typical. The only ones who know the truth is Casey and his team.

Stoners good when there is nobody else on the track with him, but when Rossi is up his tail pipe he bottles it big time. Rossi has employed the Gibernau Theory to good effect on Stoner.

Seems like the old saying, "winning the world title is easier than defending it" is true.

One other thing how the heck did Roger Burnett worm his way back onto the BBC, Thats Roger who couldn't beat an Armstrong 350 on his Honda 500 Triple

@Mattjam:

The difference is that when Rossi "blamed" his tires/motorcycle for a bad result, it was pretty obvious to everyone that he was telling the truth. But I don't remember Rossi blaming the tires or his motorcycle for a DNF caused by a crash.

As Jack Mordino stated in one of the first comments here, even in 2006, talking about the crash that costed him the WC, VR assumed it was HIS error, not a tire/motorcycle problem.

I recall 2 of Rossi's DNFs that he blamed the hardware: a front tire problem (it was clearly visible in the TV footage that the tire was missing a bit !) and an engine blown to smithereens (the cloud of smoke coming out of the exaust wasn't exactly a bbq)...

"V"