Misano MotoGP: Casey Stoner fades to third with fatigue

Casey Stoner blamed chronic fatigue for preventing him from challenging for an eighth victory of 2011 in yesterday’s Misano MotoGP race.

The Repsol Honda rider was hounding factory Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo for the opening 11 laps of the race when he suddenly ran out of steam.

Conditions for the 28-lap race weren’t as hot as practice and qualifying with temperatures hitting 28 degrees. But it was the humidity that tested the physical endurance of the field and Stoner said it was impossible for him to sustain his victory bid once tiredness set in.

The 2007 world champion eventually dropped back to third to see Lorenzo cut his lead to 35-points with five races remaining.

Stoner said a lack of sleep after he’d made quick the Transatlantic dash from Indianapolis had left him feeling jaded throughout practice and he said: “We were a long way off and it is not that we didn’t quite make it, we obviously never had the chance of winning. On Friday morning already I was really tired from Indy and it has been a difficult week with sleep depravation and just struggling to recover. We did everything we could to try and recover and try to keep as much energy as we could for the race. At the start I felt pretty good.

“The bike was good on the brakes and I had good turning and I had good drive coming out of the corners and I was pretty confident with the set-up. But we also had to be careful with the little bit of rain and it wasn’t the best conditions for the first few laps, so for me Jorge to be leading was actually a little bit better. He was arriving at the wet points before me and I could see if something was going to happen or if it was slippery.

“As the race wore on we started to pick up the pace and the bike was reacting well to it and I just got to a point where I started getting tired, simple as that. I started being weak on the brakes and running wide and that caused me to start braking earlier and I was losing more time and step by step Jorge started to build the gap.”

It got worse for Stoner with factory Honda team-mate relegating him back to third on lap 23 and he said: “I tried to keep the gap to Dani and concentrate on that but even that was too much for me. I was losing chunks of energy lap by lap and it was too hard for me to keep going. I saw there was a big gap behind Dani and thought third was definitely the way to go. “

Stoner was still able to ease to his 11th consecutive rostrum and he said: “If I went all out I might have destroyed myself and maybe I could have got one better position or stayed with Dani but that would have a meant a heck of a lot more risk. It probably would have finished myself for the race and take too long to recover for the next one. Even slowing down towards the end I didn’t feel great, so we can focus on the next one. This looks like a bad race but we’re still on the podium.”

For 13 pages of news and reaction from the Misano MotoGP and Nurburgring WSB races, see this week’s issue of MCN.