The 2011 MotoGP season began in the darkness of Qatar, made day by the circuit lights and by the brilliance of Australia’s Casey Stoner. It ended, effectively, in the darkness of Malaysia, where no light was bright enough to dispel the grief which engulfed the MotoGP world with the loss of Italy’s Marco Simoncelli.
The freakish accident which saw the Honda Gresini rider fall, lose his helmet and suffer dreadful injuries when hit by two following riders naturally led to the cancellation of the Malaysian MotoGP event.
That left 17 races instead of the scheduled 18 – and Stoner won 10 of them, including the season finale in Valencia, to claim his second World Championship.
The undoubted highlight of the year was Stoner’s title-sealing success at Phillip Island, the home circuit which he has dominated for the last five seasons. In that time the MotoGP machines have covered 135 laps of the magnificent Bass Strait circuit: Stoner has led 107, won his home race five times in a row, and in 2011, on his 26th birthday, he gave Honda its first Australian victory of the 800cc era and its first title in any category in five years.
“To win this one here, to win five straight, on my birthday, this home Grand Prix, to win my second championship, everything all aligned in one day is just unbelievable,” said Stoner. “There’s not a lot of people, if ever, that will have the chance to do that so I’m very thankful and very grateful.”
With Stoner the only man to take his 2011 win tally into double figures, the remaining seven race victories were shared among three riders. Two of them were the Australian’s Repsol Honda teammates Dani Pedrosa, the diminutive Spaniard who had another injury-plagued year, and Andrea Dovizioso. Pedrosa won three times to a solitary success for ‘Dovi’.
That left outgoing World Champion Jorge Lorenzo to fly a lonely Yamaha flag among the all-conquering works Hondas, but when the popular Spaniard fell in Phillip Island practice and damaged the ring finger of his left hand, his season – and with it his despairing title challenge – came to a low-key end.
The same could be said of Loris Capirossi, but in the great Italian rider’s case it was his long career that concluded in 2011. ‘Capirex’, a winner at Phillip Island over 20 years ago, bowed out after a difficult season and a remarkable tally of 328 Grand Prix starts. Sadly he was left stranded on a record of 99 podium appearances.
Speaking of Italian riders, the once invincible Valentino Rossi, who supplanted Stoner at Ducati, not only failed to win a race in 2011, he made only one visit to the podium after a third-place finish in France as early as the fourth round.
There was, happily, one new face among the race-winners. It belonged to American Ben Spies, who marked Yamaha’s 50th anniversary in fine style with his maiden MotoGP victory at the place they call ‘the cathedral’ of the sport, Assen in the Netherlands.
Stoner ended his second Championship-winning season with an advantage of 90 points over Lorenzo. It was the end of the 800cc era, with new 1000cc regulations to come in for 2012. Cold comfort for his rivals, then, when Stoner said at Phillip Island how much he was looking forward to the change. “I’m comfortable with more power,” he smiled, and everyone knew exactly what he meant.
