EXCLUSIVE: The “different” approach that pushed Casey Stoner to MotoGP titles

Two-time MotoGP World Champion says he never “defended” a MotoGP title, despite winning two.

Of course, neither Stoner’s title defences were successful, Valentino Rossi dethroning the Australian in 2008, and Jorge Lorenzo winning the 2012 MotoGP title after Stoner broke his right ankle at Indianapolis and missed several races as a result.

But Stoner’s opinion is that he was never ‘defending’ a title to begin with – the new season marked a new beginning, with no baggage carried over from the previous one bar the change in number that Stoner elected to take after each of his two championship wins.

“I think I maybe approached things differently to most, in that I’ve never ‘defended’ a title, in my opinion – it’s always a new championship, clean slate,” Stoner said, speaking to Crash.net in an interview organised to highlight his role in the new Ride 6 videogame in which he stars as a kind of ‘boss character’.

“People love to talk about ‘defending a championship’, but it’s not – we’re all going from zero points again. Everybody is basically in a race to get to the most amount of points first before the end of the season, if you look at it that way. 

“So, I sort of took things race-by-race, I didn’t ever see that somebody was a ‘final boss’, somebody was there to overcome. I think, on the weekend, or if they had some fantastic form– if a certain rider had been like that, they had more of a target on their back, they were the person to beat. 

“But I don’t think necessarily [that] you went into a new championship sort of thinking like that. Everyone was different, bikes would change during the off-season, people would change bikes through the off-season, so you never knew what to expect going into the next season and that’s the beauty of the sport.

“That’s why even though I’m, let’s say, the ‘final boss’ in this game, I never saw myself as that – it’s just another challenge to overcome, and I suppose this should be seen as a similar sort of thing.”

Stoner added that not only did he not see himself as the main protagonist of a series, he never viewed any one of his opponents like that, either.

“I never had this sort of emotion, I suppose, that many other riders do, that they’re racing their heroes, or they’re doing things that are seemingly different from the others,” he said.

“For me, my biggest challenge was myself, so there’s always more to get out of yourself, your bike et cetera. Yes, we have to race against other people, so you have to understand the dynamic between you and your biggest rivals, but I never really saw them as [above me].

“There were a few points that I definitely think I could’ve handled much better, but it all came down to me and decisions that I made and what I did. 

“So, my biggest competitor was myself, it was me trying to overcome certain issues, the way that I rode; and I needed to adapt to do something different, to be similar to the other guys, wondering how they were able to do things that I wasn’t at the time. 

“So, I think, because I didn’t really focus on any particular rider or particular rival, then that allowed me to keep adapting and keep getting stronger, and keep learning from my rivals. I felt that that really pushed me further in my career.”

Ride 6 releases for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on 12 February.