One of the hottest stories ahead of this weekend’s Indianapolis GP is MCN’s interview with reigning World Champion Casey Stoner, which will no doubt make this mid August summer day even hotter and turn tomorrow’s pre-event press conference into a media frenzy.
The Australian launched a brutally honest and very highly critical attack against Valentino Rossi and his two-year, very dismal and almost resultless seasons in Ducati, which finally forced the Italian to swallow his pride and return to Yamaha.
There has never been any good blood between the two especiallly after Stoner took the 2007 crown (and the Australian’s boundless talent wasn’t immediately recognized) and things went even further downhill after the stunning 2008 Laguna Seca race, and the media warfare which Rossi has tried to use to his advantage against his rivals, has never worked against the prickly Australian who has a long memory and not so forgiving character.
Some of Stoner’s scathing comments include, “I think he’s eating enough humble pie at the moment.
” and “I just feel completely sorry for Ducat that he has gone there and done nothing but complain about the bike and obviously they now have a bike that can do well because he keeps getting beaten by Nicky and Hector (Barbera) and that is nothing to be proud of.
” The Australian also turned the tables on the Italian by using more or less the same words that Rossi used when he said that Stoner hadn’t been trying hard enough in his last season with Ducati, “Obviously he doesn’t want to put the effort in with Ducati.
It is disappointing for them that they’re doing all they can and he is not even trying to get the best out of it, said Stoner.
The Repsol Honda rider also had a biting comment for Jeremy Burgess’ and his 2010 interview with Sportrider where the infamous ‘80 second will fix it’ was made, “They ate their words from day one.
Jerry saying that it would take him 80 seconds to fix that bike and that it was a simple issue and now they have had pretty much two years on the thing have not made any inroads.
Rossi responded to the attack via Twitter with a very simple,”sempre molto carino il mio amico Casey ah ah ah” – which translated more or less means, my friend Casey is always so very nice ah ah ah