MotoGP News
HRC was delighted to announce that Casey Stoner will become a factory Honda rider in next year’s MotoGP World Championship.
The Australian 2007 World Champion, who rode in the Honda LCR Team in his debut MotoGP season in 2006, will rejoin Honda after four seasons with Ducati.
Honda’s complete factory team line-up for 2011 will be officially presented later in the season.
Shuhei Nakamoto (HRC Vice President) say: "We are very pleased that Casey will join Honda again next year. Clearly he is one of the top riders in MotoGP and he will bring valuable speed and experience to our team."
"In the factory Honda squad we already have two very strong and experienced riders in Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso who are performing very well and currently hold second and third positions in the 2010 World Championship."
"HRC hopes also to retain these two riders for next year – giving us what would be a truly formidable line-up."
In 2006, at twenty years of age, Casey entered MotoGP on the LCR Honda. He set pole position in his second MotoGP race in Qatar and battled for the win until the final corner in the GP of Turkey, finishing runner-up just a fraction behind race winner Marco Melandri. Casey finishing eighth overall in his rookie MotoGP season after he DNF’d in six races, and didn’t start in one.
In 2007 Casey Stoner has joined the Ducati Marlboro Team alongside Loris Capirossi. On March 10th of that year, at the Losail Circuit in Qatar, Stoner won the first Grand Prix of the season, the first ever 800cc era, and his first win in the Moto GP class.
That year Stoner secured Ducati’s first MotoGP World Championship becoming the first rider in over 30 years to win the MotoGP title on a European made racing motorcycle and the second youngest premier-class World Champion, after Freddie Spencer who won his title in 1983, and at the time was 84 days younger than the 21 year old Stoner.
Stoner followed that up with a second-place finish in 2008, and last year, even after missing three races due to being lactose intolerant, he finished in fourth place.This year Stoner has finished on the MotoGP podium only twice in seven rounds of racing.
