Marco Bezzecchi
Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner became major rivals during their MotoGP careers, which even helped to make the Australian a pantomime villain for a number of fans.
Despite his immense talent and very honest way with words, not all MotoGP supporters saw Stoner as a hero in a world with Rossi in it. Instead, he was a rider whom many fans loved to hate, aided by interrupting the Italian’s era of absolute dominance by winning the 2007 title.
Rossi was the irrefutable King of MotoGP from 2001 to 2005 and added two further premier class crowns for the Urbino native’s collection in 2009 and 2010. Nicky Hayden was the first rider to dethrone Rossi in 2006 before Stoner won his first title in the 2007 MotoGP season.
It was also amid the Queensland native’s title defence that Stoner started to lose respect for Rossi at the 2008 US Grand Prix. The would-be 2011 champion took issue with the Italian for his iconic and controversial overtake at Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew when Rossi cut the corner.
Casey Stoner told Valentino Rossi ‘Your ambition outweighs your talent’ after their crash in the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix
Their rivalry would only intensify, and especially reached a boiling point at the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix when Stoner told Rossi that “Your ambition outweighs your talent” in the Honda garage after being taken out of the Jerez race after the Italian’s very late overtake in the rain.
Rossi attempted an extremely ambitious move on Stoner at Turn 1 to start Lap 7/27. But by pushing hard, the Ducati rider lost the front and dropped his bike with the Honda pilot also helpless to avoid being wiped out. Yet Rossi would re-join the action, before finishing in P5.
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Valentino Rossi from stats to net worth
The trackside marshals helped Rossi re-join the 2011 Spanish GP, much to the anger of Mick Doohan at the time with Stoner not given the same treatment. Being left to remount on his own also meant the Honda pilot could not restart his bike and added to Stoner’s frustration.
“I saw Valentino was really fast in morning warm up at Jerez and you could tell he thought he was on for a win,” Stoner later told Superbike in November 2013. “Maybe he was riding harder than he should have been on the day, because he made a mistake and he crashed.
“It was disappointing that I had to be hooked up with that… It’s difficult to explain exactly what I was feeling, probably pure frustration.
“We knew the risk we were taking with the clutch, that the bike would be difficult to restart. But we thought that if I crashed and took myself out of the race, then that’s my own fault. It doesn’t happen very often that somebody else takes you out of a race.
“But I happened to be the unlucky one that day. Maybe if the track had been dry and I’d had more people pushing me, we’d have got the bike restarted. But the way everything turned out was just frustrating.”
Casey Stoner gave Valentino Rossi a slow handclap after being taken out at Jerez in 2011
Stoner immediately took his chance to show Rossi how he felt about their crash in the 2011 Spanish GP before his famous quip in the Honda garage following the Jerez race, when the Ducati rider was still wearing his full leathers and helmet as he sought to speak to his rival.
Much to the dismay of many at the time, Stoner waited for Rossi to come back around and gave his fierce foe a slow handclap. But the Australian was not going to waste his chance to make his feelings clear and continued to feel Rossi’s ambition outweighed his skill for years.
“He was behind everyone else, where I would have been, as well, so I thought I’d enjoy it!” Stoner continued.
He also added: “At that moment, at that corner, his ambition did outweigh his talent. Can you imagine if the situation had been reversed and I’d taken him out? I’d have been called all the names under the sun. But he says, ‘Oh, I just made a mistake’ and gets away with it.”
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