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Casey Stoner seems to have inherited the infamous Rossi curse. The current World Champion, despite winning the first MotoGP race of the year, got off to a relatively slow start defending his title. But recently had been coming on strong, winning several mid-season races. That was until Laguna Seca!

 At the Dry Lake, Casey started talking some trash about 7-time World Champion Valentino Rossi, and how he was going to beat him handily. Vale, who’s season had been relative unsensational up to this point, had enough of the rhetoric and put on a masterful demonstration of racecraft at the California track, beating Stoner and his superior Ducati. Rossi, arguably the best roadracer of all time, knows how to get in his rivals heads. And by negating Stoner’s supposed advantage, frustrated him into running off-track and crashing about midway through the race. Even though Stoner remounted and finished the race in second, his post-race comments about Rossi’s aggressive passes were clearly sour grapes! And Rossi doesn’t take well to whining rivals.

At the most recent round at Brno (Czech Republic), again Stoner seemed to have the superior machine and the advantage. But Rossi’s relentless pursuit in the early laps, again pressured Casey into a lapse of concentration and another crash! This time scoring no points.

This scenario is reminiscent of the days when Sete Gibernau was Rossi’s chief rival. Sete had started making real inroads into Rossi’s dominance, but after a particlarly aggressive pass on Rossi’s part, Sete started whining about his dangerous riding. Very soon afterward, Rossi stated that Gibernau would never win another race …… and he never did! Sete retired a year or so later having fulfilled Rossi’s prediction. Scary stuff.

Anyway, Casey seems to have motivated Rossi to new heights and in doing soo may have inadvertently ressurrected the “curse”. Only time will tell, but with two crashes in a row, the fates do not seem to be smiling on Casey Stoner and Ducati at this time.

Rhino