Marco Bezzecchi
Casey Stoner went toe-to-toe against Valentino Rossi during the Italian’s decade of dominance in the 2000s, and even beat the seven-time champion to the 2007 title.
Only Nicky Hayden in 2006 and Stoner in 2007 could deny Rossi the top prize between the 2001 and 2009 seasons. Hayden sealed his only title riding for Honda, while Stoner added to his 2007 title with Ducati when the Australian won the 2011 world championship for Honda.
Rossi was a distant third with Yamaha as Stoner won the 2007 title and only secured seventh in the 2011 standings amid his dismal days at Ducati. The Italian finished 126 points adrift of Stoner in 2007 and 211 in 2011. Rossi won the 2008 title by 93 points over Stoner in second.
What Rossi achieved across the 2000s firmly established him as one of the greatest riders in MotoGP history, if not the greatest. The Urbino-born icon even went on to win 89 of his 372 Grands Prix, take a record 199 podiums and secure 55 pole positions before retiring in 2021.
Casey Stoner once claimed ‘no one’ comes close to Mick Doohan as MotoGP’s ‘GOAT’
But while some consider Rossi to be the greatest MotoGP rider of all time, Stoner suggested in 2021 that no rider has ever come close to what Mick Doohan achieved after his severe leg injury in 1992. Doohan won the 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 500cc titles, all for Honda.
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Valentino Rossi from stats to net worth
Doohan’s premier class career should have ended after the 1992 Dutch Grand Prix at the TT Circuit Assen, when the Gold Coast native sustained a distal spyroid displaced fracture of his right tibia. Issues due to Doohan’s rushed surgery then risked him having the leg amputated.
Stoner told the official MotoGP podcast in 2021: “Mick has been not just an idol, but he was who I based my entire career off. What he was able to achieve after his incident, for me, still to this day, no one’s even come close. So, everybody’s talking about Valentino and all these other people because of, let’s say, numbers and all those sorts of things for being the GOAT.
“But, in my opinion, to go and do what Mick did after an injury like he had, no one even comes close to the domination and everything he was able to achieve.
“So, he’s always been a beacon for me that there’s always someone with a worse situation than you, you’ve got to keep that whole never give up attitude. And that’s something I think Mick had – [an] extremely, extremely tough mentality.
“And even the way he trained, he just worked harder than everyone around him. So, even if he wasn’t the most talented on the day and someone else had a bit of pace over him, he just never stopped grinding, never stopped working and such a great attitude to have. So, he was ruthless, you know, he did whatever he had to do.”
Casey Stoner would not have eclipsed Mick Doohan’s five MotoGP titles if he had the chance
Doohan endured a stomach-turning ordeal as he strived to return to the 500cc class field as quickly as possible following his leg injury at Assen in 1992. For a lot of riders, and certainly for most people, what the Australian went through would have likely then seen them retire.
But Doohan was not ordinary, and his only focus in the aftermath of his injury and during his recovery was to return and fight Kevin Schwantz for the 1992 title. Doohan led Schwantz by 53 points before his crash, and he returned from injury in Brazil after missing just four races.
A P12 finish in Brazil, followed by P6 in the season-finale in South Africa, would have been a title-winning effort in any other year. But points were only awarded to the top 10 in 1992. It took Doohan until 1994 to win his first title, but it would also be the first of his five in a row.
Such was the admiration that Stoner held for Doohan that the Australian would have retired if he had won five titles, so as not to eclipse his compatriot. In the end, Stoner won the 2007 MotoGP title despite being “eaten alive” on his Ducati and added the 2011 title with Honda.
Stoner continued: “So, him being that light for me, I suppose, for my whole career, I wanted to be like Mick Doohan. I didn’t want to be better than Mick.
“So many other people are like, ‘I want to go and beat this record, and beat that record’. It was never about records for me. If it was, I would have kept racing. I’m sure I could have gone a lot further up the ladder, but it wasn’t about that.
“So, if I had a chance in the ideal world to win five championships, there was clearly no way that was going to happen. But if there was, then yeah, I wouldn’t have gone more than that. That would have been my way of ending it.”
Doohan ultimately retired in 1999 after breaking his leg at that year’s Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. He did not return to action after the injury he suffered in the third round of the 1999 season. Doohan bowed out with five titles, 54 wins and 95 podiums from 137 500cc races.
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