Casey Stoner said goodbye to MotoGP as a full-time rider at the end of 2012, at a time when Honda was betting everything on signing Marc Márquez. The Australian admitted that he wasn’t prepared to take a back seat, while recalling the ‘bad publicity’ surrounding the team.
A two-time world champion, once with Ducati in 2007 and again with Honda in 2011, Stoner recalled Márquez’s rise to the top category in a conversation with La Gazzetta dello Sport, reported by Motosan, and how there was some bad press surrounding the structure: ‘There was no way I was prepared for this. They weren’t understanding and they were already talking to people in case it happened – him leaving the team – but there’s so much bad press around Honda because everyone thinks it’s rubbish because everyone wants to leave’ he said, before concluding: ‘It doesn’t matter how prepared we are if people don’t want to go there’.
Stoner has no problem saying what he thinks and considered that ‘unfortunately’ many riders end up not having the ability to think for themselves, even criticising the way in which many of them behave in the face of situations and less successful results:
– Unfortunately, in the case of riders, very few do things for themselves. They look at what others are doing and want what they have. They always find an excuse for why they’re not getting results and say that it’s the motorbike that’s the problem. Instead of going to work and saying: «I’ve got this fantastic team, this fantastic and successful team, let’s work together and make the most of it».