British MotoGP: Casey Stoner seeks faster pace

Casey Stoner has admitted he needs to significantly improve his pace to bring an end to a bitterly disappointing start to the 2010 MotoGP world championship.

The Australian hasn’t finished on the podium in the opening four races of the campaign and his best result was a distant fourth place in the Italian GP at Mugello earlier this month.   

But even at Mugello, a circuit where Ducati completes thousands of private testing miles a year, Stoner was nowhere near contending for the podium.

He finished a massive 25 seconds off Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa and 19 seconds off the podum.

And the 2007 world champion admitted his start to the campaign had fallen way short of expectations.

Going into this weekend’s British GP at Silverstone, Stoner trails series leader Jorge Lorenzo by a massive 66-points and he said: “It’s definitely not the way we wanted to start the world championship or the way we though we’d start it. We’ve been competitive at a few tracks except Mugello and I’d almost assured myself that I’d be competitive there.

“It was a little bit of a shock to the system and we really need to understand why we were struggling so much at a circuit where we normally go very well at. We definitely struggled and we need to pick up the pace and try running at the front without the risk of crashing like we have been.”

Stoner will look to inject some much-needed momentum into his season when MotoGP returns to Silverstone for the first time since 1986 this weekend.

Stoner did compete at the Northamptonshire circuit nearly a decade ago when riding in the British 125 championship, but he said previous knowledge counted for nothing on the revamped track.

The 24-year-old said: “It looks interesting. There’s a few new bits that they’ve made in the last couple of days so it will be interesting to see how they hold up. The only parts of the track that don’t look great are the really old parts where the tarmac has been damaged from a lot of racing. But we need to see how it is when we get out there. The track layout looks like a lot of fun. Everybody thinks I’m an expert at this track but it is nine years ago since I was last here and I think only four corners are left. But I think it can hold some great races on Sunday.”