Stoner: ‘Comeback has been almost perfect’

Second place at Portugal for Casey Stoner on his comeback after a three race absence due to illness has been followed up by two brilliant successive wins from the factory Ducati rider at Phillip Island and Sepang in the space of seven days – as he puts his mid-season difficulties behind him.

Stoner adapted most efficiently to the wet weather at the Shell Advance Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon to take a remarkable 15 second victory over the rest of the field, before humbly stating, “The conditions were the same for everyone today and none of us had tested at this track in the wet for quite a long time. So the early laps were a bit tentative and going into turn one I didn’t get a good start and a few people came past me.”

“I slotted into fourth place coming out of turn two though and then when I got into the lead I thought I’ll just test the track condition for a few laps and I never expected to pull out the gap that I did. After that I just decided to keep going hard for at least half race distance and once I got a gap I was happy with I started to back off the pace.”

Giving a highly positive summary of his successful return to action in recent weeks, the Australian added, “We can’t ask for anything more after the season we have had. These last three races back have been close enough to perfect, and we were just one result away from perfection at Portugal which is always a difficult circuit for us anyway.”

“Now I’m really looking forward to going to Valencia as it is a track which I have enjoyed for the past few years and I want to give a big thanks to my team, everyone who has supported me and the doctors who helped me out. It has been very nice to come back and get results like this.”