Casey Stoner said goodbye to MotoGP as a full-time rider at the end of 2012, at a time when Honda was betting “all the chips” on signing Marc Márquez. The Australian admitted he wasn’t prepared to take a back seat, while also recalling the ‘bad publicity’ surrounding the team.
Two-time world champion, once with Ducati in 2007 and once 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 reputation surrounding the structure: ‘There was no way to be prepared for this. They weren’t understanding and were already talking to people in case it happened – his departure from the team – but there’s so much bad publicity around Honda because everyone thinks it’s crap because everyone wants to leave’, he said, before concluding: ‘No matter how prepared we are, if people don’t want to go there, it doesn’t matter’.
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 criticizing the way many approach 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 not getting results and say that the problem is the bike. Instead of going to work and saying: “I have this fantastic team, this fantastic and successful team, let’s work together and make the most of it.”
