If Dani Pedrosa’s fractured collarbone wasn’t painful enough, Sunday’s race at Phillip Island – and the man who won it – would have only added to his discomfort, writes Matthew Clayton
While one of Honda’s factory 2011 riders was making his way back to Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport, the other was celebrating for the fourth year in a row at his home Grand Prix. For the former, Spaniard Dani Pedrosa, the recent form surge of the latter, Casey Stoner, couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Pedrosa did the only sensible thing by pulling out of the Australian Grand Prix after qualifying a lowly 15th on Saturday afternoon. His battered body, still in recovery mode less than two weeks after surgery to fix a fractured collarbone, would have struggled to cope with Phillip Island in dry conditions – and after winter made a dramatic re-appearance at the seaside circuit this weekend, he was never going to be on the pace. Come Saturday afternoon, when he’d qualified more than three seconds behind pole-man Stoner, he decided he’d had enough. And knowing Stoner’s recent record here at the Island, Pedrosa could have left Australia with a fair idea of who was going to win Sunday afternoon’s 27-lap race.
Stoner’s victory not only brought the Australian to within 23 points of second place in the championship with two races remaining, but it continued the dramatic upturn in fortunes for the man who’ll become Pedrosa’s teammate next season. Stoner’s season was little more than a write-off until the Aragon Grand Prix last month – a smattering of podium finishes from 12 races wouldn’t have thrilled the 2007 world champion or his fans – but since then, he’s been in dynamic form. Wins at Aragon and Motegi (and a first-lap crash at Sepang in Malaysia) proceeded the weekend at the Island, and once the big bikes get to Australia, the rest of the field could be excused for staying at home. One publication in circulation at the Island over the weekend – not naming names – mistakenly had Stoner listed as the winner of the 2010 race even before the 800cc machines had turned a lap. As it turned out, they were onto something.
Coming into Sunday’s race, Stoner had won three straight Grands Prix at home and been headed for a total of one lap in his last 81 racing laps here – by Pedrosa on the first lap of the 2009 race. On Sunday, nothing much changed. Stoner survived a big push from Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo off the start to lead into Turn 1, crossed the line after one lap a full second and a half ahead of the Spaniard, and ensured that the only interest at the front would be the final margin over the rest, which ended up being 8.598 seconds over the new World Champion.
Stoner isn’t one to be interested in much other than winning, as we discovered on the weekend when he shrugged off a question about his 25th birthday on Saturday with a curt “I don’t like birthdays, and I especially don’t like them at the racetrack”. Second place in this year’s championship, should it happen, probably won’t float his boat either. But next year, with Honda seeming to be back on the pace again and with his form at the end of 2010 behind him, Stoner promises to be a formidable force.
Pedrosa – not to mention the likes of Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi – already knew that, but Sunday’s dominant win served as another timely reminder.
The views in The Inside Line are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation.
