When the 2011 season schedule was announced, Casey Stoner already saw a happy coincidence: the Australian Grand Prix would take place on his birthday. It is not usual for a rider to blow out the candles in front of his audience, but that day on October 16 was going to be even more special for the Aussie , who had already won a first title in 2007, then with Ducati.
Now in the Repsol Honda team, Stoner was fighting with Jorge Lorenzo for the championship and came into the event with a 40-point lead over his rival with three races to go. With eight wins to date and only one race off the podium, the math was simple: he needed to leave Phillip Island with 50 points over his rival to become world champion.
Lorenzo’s resistance ended before the start of the race, when he suffered a heavy crash in the warm up. The Spanish rider suffered a finger injury and ended the day in hospital, unable to race. Stoner had not needed to wait for his rival’s misfortune either, dominating the weekend from the first minutes: he had finished each session in the lead, with a clear advantage, and was the favourite.
(Before reading on, click on this link or on the image to see the photos of the 2011 Australian GP)
“This race was just horrible.”
Stoner was in the lead from the start and thought things were going to get out of hand when the rain came. “We knew we had the pace to win the race in the dry, but when it starts to rain and you’re on slicks , it’s no fun. This race was just horrible!” he recently said on the Under the Visor podcast. “I think it hadn’t rained for 80-90% of the track, but after Lucky Heights and going into Turn 12, there was a sheet of rain! A lot of drivers crashed.”
The arrival of the rain 15 minutes after the start allowed a change of bike, but only two riders did so. The others risked staying on the track on slicks . As a result, only seven crossed the finish line. Stoner knew how to handle the situation masterfully, reaching a lead of up to seven seconds before slowing down. He would end up completing the 27 laps with a margin of two seconds over Marco Simoncelli (second and best result in MotoGP, a week before his death) and Andrea Dovizioso.
“I think I hit that curtain with two or three laps to go and risked losing it all in the last couple of corners. I found myself in a pretty tough spot, but I managed to hold on and win the championship,” Stoner said. The 25 points of the victory left Lorenzo without options.
“It’s not how you want to win a championship, but at the same time I was going to do it anyway, it just didn’t look like it was going to happen that day,” the Australian acknowledged. “Since [his accident], all he had to do was finish in the top six. He couldn’t fail, because all he wanted was to win the championship that day.”
The day was made even more memorable by the fact that Stoner took his fifth consecutive win at Phillip Island. “For so many things to coincide on the same day… It was my birthday, it was my fifth [victory] in a row at my home Grand Prix, my second title, everything seemed to coincide on that day and it was something special. I don’t think many people won a title on his birthday, so it was very special for me”.
A year later, Casey Stoner won the Australian Grand Prix for the sixth consecutive time, sealing an all-time record, and at the end of the season he retired at just 27 years old.
