Casey Stoner reunites with key person behind Honda MotoGP success

In the time since his retirement, Casey Stoner’s MotoGP legacy has become more firmly rooted in his first premier class title, that which came in 2007 with Ducati, but with his second title in 2011 the Australian did something almost totally opposite.

Stoner’s Ducati title was of course the first for the Italian marque in the premier class of Grand Prix racing, and therefore the justification of the project which first took to the MotoGP grid in 2003: the second year of the four-stroke era of the World Championship.

It was an achievement that increasingly stood out as time passed, and after Stoner’s retirement, as Ducati was never able to re-establish itself as a title-contending manufacturer in MotoGP until 2022 when Francesco Bagnaia won his first title (or, arguably, the back end of 2021 when Bagnaia won four races from the last five, including the final three in succession).

Moving to Honda for 2011, Stoner transitioned from being a part of a brand for which he was the source of all of their success to one where he was only one of a long line of champions who had raced for the manufacturer.

Even in 2011, the famous Repsol-Honda partnership was already in its 17th year, and it had enjoyed the talents of champions such as Mick Doohan, Alex Criville, Valentino Rossi, and Nicky Hayden.

Of course, before Repsol arrived in 1995, Doohan had already won his first 500cc title in 1994, and HRC’s list of premier class champions stretches back to include Eddie Lawson, Wayne Gardner, and Freddie Spencer, too.

Stoner’s title, then, put him among a specific pantheon of the sport’s greatest riders, namely those who have won in the premier class with Honda.

For the Tokyo-based manufacturer, though, it was a key victory, as Stoner’s success put an end to Yamaha’s recent domination (the Iwata marque had won successive titles in 2008, 2009, and 2010 with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo), and it was Repsol Honda's first championship win in MotoGP’s 800cc era at the final attempt, as the 1,000cc rules were introduced in 2012.

One of the key figures behind Stoner’s and Honda’s success that year was Shuhei Nakamoto, who had joined HRC as vice president in 2009 after Honda’s F1 team folded at the end of 2008; and with whom Stoner recently reunited on a trip to Tokyo.

The first two years of the 800cc era were poor for Honda, with an underperforming RC212V that was never able to consistently challenge Ducati and Stoner or Rossi, Lorenzo, and Yamaha.

For the 2009 season, there were notable technical changes, including changes in suspension brand (from Honda subsidiary Showa to Ohlins) and brakes supplier (from Honda subsidiary Nissin to Brembo).

That year, Dani Pedrosa won only two races, but in 2010 was able to mount a genuine title challenge against Jorge Lorenzo until he was forced to miss the Japanese Grand Prix after a practice crash.

Honda’s 800cc improvements temporally aligned themselves with a decline in Ducati’s competitiveness. They were therefore able to sign Stoner for the 2011 season with the simple promise of a motorcycle that could win a title.