Casey Stoner is going to be the 2011 MotoGP champ. There, I said it. Some of you may read the title and think, “2011 isn’t over yet buddy”, but as far as I am concerned, it is. Stoner’s march to the championship is as much a certainty as the fact that Vettel is going to be the 2011 F1 champion.
And the moment that all of this crystallized for me goes back to the Le Mans GP when Simoncelli passed Dani Pedrosa and then chopped in front of him causing Pedrosa to clip his front wheel against Simoncelli’s rear and the resulting spill for Pedrosa, which resulted in him fracturing his collarbone.
Simoncelli has already had run-ins with other riders this year, which caused Lorenzo most to criticising him openly in the media about his dangerous riding style. Andrea Dovizioso was another one, so the public outcry after the Pedrosa accident was huge.
Those of you who follow MotoGP will know that the little Spaniard is very unlucky with injuries. I cannot remember him having raced a complete season without some fracture or break that he has had to recover from. And at the top echelon of 2 wheel racing, even when you come back the injury often prevents you from racing at 100 per cent immediately.
I was convinced this was Pedrosa’s year. The Honda bike was the fastest at the start of the year and although he had to contend with Stoner, I had the feeling that he would have the edge over Stoner with enough races to clinch the championship.
The minute Simoncelli caused Pedrosa to go down, it gave Stoner an immeasurable advantage in the championship standings. Pedrosa missed the Catalunya GP, British GP, Dutch TT at Assen, races in which Stoner finished, 1st , 1st and 2nd, giving him a massive 70 points to Pedrosa’s zero.
Lorenzo has tried to hang on valiantly, and even won the race in Mugello, but his Yamaha is not as fast as the Honda. The only way we were going to get a great title race this year was if Pedrosa remained injury free throughout the season and traded race wins with Stoner.
Sadly, thanks to Marco Simoncelli, 2011 has been denied that spectacle.
