MotoGP's Casey Stoner: 'Phillip Island test convinced me I could win'

MotoGP world championship leader Casey Stoner reckons a successful test session at his home track in February started to convince him he could win on Ducati’s new GP7.

A three-day session on home soil at Phillip Island in Australia was when Casey Stoner started to click with Ducati’s impressive new 800, and just a month later he made a stunning debut to win the season’s opening MotoGP race in Qatar.

Casey Stoner has now won four out of the opening seven races in 2007 and heads into the British GP at Donington Park on June 24, 2007 holding a 14-point lead over Valentino Rossi.

“My first test at Valencia last year I was confident we had made the right choice. But to get these kind of results I didn’t know, I thought it was possible but I didn’t know.

“I got to Phillip Island and the race distance time was really, really good and we thought, ‘wow, we know we are only here and that bike has a lot more capability in it and already we are doing these times’. Plus I was only going to get fitter and stronger with my training plan and it went from there.

“Up until the Phillip Island test I wasn’t doing anything great, just slowly getting better each day, getting used to the bike and the team and getting used to the settings. At Phillip Island we ended up pretty quick.

“It might not have looked like it on the time sheets but the race tyre test scared everybody a little bit and we were really happy with the way things were going. The Bridgestone tyres have improved since then and the bike has got better every race and we have proved what it can do when everything is right,” said 21-year-old Stoner.