Casey Stoner supports Dani Pedrosa in weight debate

Casey Stoner has thrown his support behind Dani Pedrosa in the combined bike and rider weight debate currently raging in MotoGP.

Pedrosa has strongly opposed plans to introduce a combined bike and rider minimum weight limit in MotoGP, with some of his premier class rivals believing the Spaniard has a significant advantage because of his diminutive size.

Pedrosa is over 20kg lighter than San Carlo Gresini Honda Marco Simoncelli, who is one prominent name known to back the introduction of a bike/rider weight limit.
Valentino Rossi is also an advovcate of a minimum weight limit while the Italian’s factory Ducati team-mate Nicky Hayden has also come out in support of the proposals, which were first discussed in Jerez earlier this month.

But Aussie Stoner is backing Repsol Honda team-mate Pedrosa, who blasted the proposals.

Stoner, who was controversially taken out by Rossi in a fight for the podium during the recent Spanish Grand Prix, said: “In my opinion this is an interesting subject and many people have a valid point but to be honest, I feel sorry for Dani in his situation. There are pros and cons for everything.”

“In some situations Dani’s size is definitely not an advantage to him and the bigger guys have an advantage on the smaller guys. Now we have so much more horsepower than we did in the two-stroke era and nobody complained so much then.”

“Some riders are complaining more now even though we have more horsepower and more trouble to find traction. I think this is the most important part. If you’re heavier you should have traction a little bit easier. I got the whole the new age rider criticism for years about traction control and they want to find excuses everywhere for different things and there are pros and cons to everything.”

“Dani’s size he has lot of difficulties like change of direction and weight balances but at the same time they have disadvantages with their bigger size trying to get tucked in on the straight and maybe on exits. But their bikes are lot more stable than they are with us. There is always going to be discussions about this so they should just put up with it. It’s the way it is and if you’re already struggling for grip, how can you complain about grip?”