On the Record:

ON THE Record:

CASEY STONER

Repsol Honda MotoGP racer

MATTHEW MILES

I'm happy to have grown up and come through the different categories with Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa. It's a great rivalry that started many years ago, and I don't see any reason why it won't continue for the rest of the season. I'm going to look back and be quite proud that I was at least part of it.

Dorna needs to stop changing the rules. Kawasaki would still be here, Suzuki would still be here. You'd probably have more Hondas and Ducatis on the grid. Last year's bikes, still very competitive machinery, could be given to the satellite teams. It's the way the championship was always run. MotoGP doesn't need to be like Formula One. It's got the championship. It's got the riders. Everything is there for spectacular racing. This CRT thing is a joke. They shouldn't be racing with us. I feel really sorry for the riders who are out there because the speed that we go past them is insane. One, their bikes probably don't work the tires the same way as our bikes do, and two, most of the riders don't deserve to be out there. They haven't got the speed, so that just makes everything dangerous.

My three top circuits are Phillip Island, Mugello and Brno. Fast, flowing tracks are my favorite, but for such a tight circuit that we barely get into top gear, Laguna Seca really does have a lot of character. I think it's a little too small for these bikes—they have a lot of grunt—but I do enjoy it, for sure.

Since we got this new

Bridgestone front tire at Silverstone, we've had chatter on both sides, but the rear chatter has always been worse on the right. At Sachsenring, a left-hand circuit, Dani and I were able to show our potential and ride like we want to because we didn't have Unfortunately,

Indy's got the history. I've been

criticized for saying that I don't enjoy the track, but it's the honest truth. If we were racing the oval, I think it would be a different story. The track is de ad-flat, and that's not a lot of fun on a bike. the parts that help the situation able to finish race distance. It's a very peculiar thing, something to do with the stiffness of a certain part. To make it soft enough, it's just not strong enough.

Years ago, I had huge chatter on my 125.1 was running standard Honda wheels; we put on Marchesinis and snap! the chatter was immediately gone. Unfortunately, once you get to this level, it's not that simple. We've tried front and rear axles. We've tried moving the ballast—the extra four kilograms we've had to attach this year—every which way, and it doesn't make a difference. The fact that it's different left to right is very peculiar; it means that chassis stiffness is different left to right. But, yeah, chatter can make you pull your hair out.

We didn't have chatter when we first tested this bike with last year's tires. We put on the tires for this year, and, immediately, we got chatter. The new front tire made it worse. So, we had a bike that was working really well, and the tires have completely destroyed it.

I had to learn corner speed. I grew up in dirt-track, and Australian dirt-track is very different from American dirttrack; we had to pick up the bike, drive it out of corners. Most of the European riders came from mini-moto, and they know corner speed. With the new tires, there's no difference in grip level from the edge to the fatter part of the tire. So, guys who like running corner 's the perfect tire. They can run it hot and still get good grip

I like to ride the bike to the ttle more, pick it up and drive it c* lot like Dani. But when we pick it up, no part of the tire gives us more traction; we get just as much grip on the side of the tire.

If we had less electronics and less edge grip, even just less electronics, people would be a lot more afraid of getting on the gas on the edge of the tires.