Sepang MotoGP: Casey Stoner not fussed by third place

Clinching third place in the MotoGP world championship will mean nothing to former world champion Casey Stoner.

The Aussie, who claimed a brilliant home success in Phillip Island last weekend, is fighting for third place in the 2009 premier class championship with Repsol Honda rival Dani Pedrosa.

Stoner leads the Spaniard by six points going into this weekend’s Malaysia GP at Sepang but he said he would take greater satisfaction out of winning the final two races than if he secured third in the championship.

The 24-year-old said: “We’re all here to try and become world champion. That’s what everyone’s striving for no matter what position we arrive. “

Everyone’s fighting for that number one position. The championship’s gone for me, so now it’s trying to win as many races as we can.

“It’s been a disastrous season. We’ve missed three races and I think we should be pretty happy to be in the position we are now.

“We’re not fighting for the championship, so we might as well fight for race wins.”

Boosted by his third straight home win at Phillip Island just four days ago, Stoner said he was looking forward to racing for the first time in a long time.

And he reckons his body will be able to cope with a severe physical examination in Sepang this weekend with searing temperatures and high humidity dominating the Malaysian race weekend.

The 2007 world champion only recently returned from a three-race lay-off taken to cure a fatigue issue that struck him at the midway stage of the season.

He added: The last race was fantastic for us. It was the right way to come back. Like I said, in Portugal I had a great race and Phillip Island just topped it off. It was so much better.

“Everything worked well there, including my body, so we’re really looking forward to this weekend now. And it’s been quite a while. It seems like an age since I was actually looking forward to racing.

“Those races where we knew we couldn’t win, it was depressing going out there knowing that we weren’t going to be competitive if the race was dry and physically it was going to be near on impossible to finish the race at a good level.

“So I’m looking forward to these races again and I’m really looking forward to a fight and see what happens this race. We know there are at least half a dozen riders who ride really well at this circuit.

“If we all get the bikes set up well, then it’s going to be a hard race at the front. Hopefully I can get at least a podium.”