Photo: motogp.com
Casey Stoner and HRC have just announced that they inked a new deal for 2015, with the house of Tokyo retaining the Australian pilot and MotoGP Legend as a test rider. Knowing that Honda has contract with both Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, reading the initial headline has not caused a raised pulse, because we were kind of expecting this sooner or later.
Anyway, Casey Stoner and Honda fans are obviously going to be thrilled to learn about him getting back behind the bars of the RC213V prototypes and helping HRC to come up with better machinery. Needless to say, the rumor mill already started spinning, and people are already seeing Stoner as a wildcard appearance on his home track at Phillip Island or other location closer to his home, say, Sepang.
However, we know that Casey Stoner will be present with Honda at the first official test of 2015, 4 through 7 February at Sepang, Malaysia, together with Marquez and Pedrosa, and possibly Hiroshi Aoyama, HRC’s new test rider for 2015. No real info on a potential wildcard appearance transpired at the moment, but something tells us that in 2015 we might see Stoner racing again…
Both Shuhei Nakamoto and Stoner seemed very happy in their statements, and this further deepens our suppositions that Honda may be cooking something interesting.
“First of all, a Happy New Year! We are very pleased to begin 2015 by announcing the continuation of our relationship with Casey and keep him in the Honda family. The feedback he will give HRC is invaluable and we are lucky to have a test pilot able to push the RC213V to the limit,” says the Honda VP.
On the other hand, Stoner said he was pleased to announce that he and Nakamoto-san have talked and reached an agreement for continuing the relationship. With the weather conditions at Sepang being radically different from those in Japan, we can expect to see Stoner making up for the disappointment both he and HRC had to contend with last year, when the rain hampered almost all the test days the Oz rider was booked for.
Honda private tests in late January ahead of Sepang
Casey Stoner will be aboard the Repsol Honda machines in a private test session which will take place between 29 and 31 January, at a yet unspecified track. Now, this track is not going to be Motegi, as weather in Japan now is rather better for skiing than for testing 220 mph (350 km/h) motorcycles.However, we know that Casey Stoner will be present with Honda at the first official test of 2015, 4 through 7 February at Sepang, Malaysia, together with Marquez and Pedrosa, and possibly Hiroshi Aoyama, HRC’s new test rider for 2015. No real info on a potential wildcard appearance transpired at the moment, but something tells us that in 2015 we might see Stoner racing again…
Both Shuhei Nakamoto and Stoner seemed very happy in their statements, and this further deepens our suppositions that Honda may be cooking something interesting.
“First of all, a Happy New Year! We are very pleased to begin 2015 by announcing the continuation of our relationship with Casey and keep him in the Honda family. The feedback he will give HRC is invaluable and we are lucky to have a test pilot able to push the RC213V to the limit,” says the Honda VP.
On the other hand, Stoner said he was pleased to announce that he and Nakamoto-san have talked and reached an agreement for continuing the relationship. With the weather conditions at Sepang being radically different from those in Japan, we can expect to see Stoner making up for the disappointment both he and HRC had to contend with last year, when the rain hampered almost all the test days the Oz rider was booked for.
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