On two occasions, Casey Stoner has exposed that his attempts to negotiate with Yamaha in MotoGP collapsed, resulting in him being “lost” with “no ride whatsoever.”
The Australian mentioned that the initial incident took place while in talks for his MotoGP debut in 2006.
Stoner was questioned about the possibility of him joining Yamaha.
“Yes. They shut it down twice! In 2005, before ‘06, I was supposed to be going to the satellite team then the factory team the year after.
“Then, all of a sudden, everything went quiet. They were obviously using me as a scapegoat to get somebody else to sign for less!”
Following his debut season at LCR Honda, where he secured a pole position and podium, Stoner mentioned that he resumed discussions with Yamaha for the 2007 season.
But again, it came to nothing.
“They offered me a contract again in ‘06, for ‘07, then again it went dead quiet.
“So I ended up with absolutely nothing. We were lost, we had no ride whatsoever.
“That’s when Ducati approached us.”
Ducati benefitted from Yamaha’s missed opportunity as Stoner joined the Italian team, achieving a sensational world title victory in his debut season in red. However, Stoner suggests he was initially brought in as a ‘fill-in,’ merely keeping the seat warm for Marco Melandri.
“We knew that we were just a fill-in because they tried to get Marco Melandri, but he wasn’t coming until 2008 because he was contracted.
“I was a fill-in rider. They literally had no plans on keeping me.
“They can pretend it was this big, beautiful thing! But I was literally just a gap-year rider!
“I was just a fill-in. Marco was coming in. That was their dream Italian team.
“Then I won the championship!
“To be honest, Yamaha gave me my motivation. All I wanted to do, at the start of the year, was to get a few podiums. Make them a little sorry that they didn’t choose me.”
Melandri duly became Stoner’s teammate in the factory Ducati team in 2008. However, he struggled, finishing just 17th in the world championship and eventually securing an early departure from the squad by the year’s end.