Casey Stoner: Winning harder for Rossi at Ducati

Casey Stoner reckons competition in MotoGP is now so fierce that Valentino Rossi won’t be a consistent winner at Ducati.

When Rossi quit Honda to join Yamaha at the end of 2003, the Italian was instantly able to consistently fight for victories and won the title at his first attempt on a YZR-M1 machine in 2004.

But Stoner, who has made his own major career change in 2011 having left Ducati to join Honda, said: “I don’t believe he’s going to do the same amount of winning he did last time when he changed to Yamaha.

“The competition level is sky high. There are not many years when people could say the competition is a lot higher than what it is now and one mistake at the moment and it is game over.

“We’ll have to wait and see what he is capable of doing on this bike but like me he has got a big challenge ahead of him.”

Stoner recently made an impressive factory Honda RC212V debut when he finished second quickest at the Valencia test earlier this month. Rossi was a lowly 15th on his much-hyped Ducati first ride.