Stoner announces retirement at end of 2012
The Repsol Honda rider addressed the media at the start of the official pre-event press conference for the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France, making a short statement in which he outlined the reasons behind his decision. "After a long time thinking, a lot of time talking with my family and my wife, this has been coming for a couple of years now but at the end of this 2012 season I will be not racing in the 2013 Championship. I will be finishing my career at the end of this season in MotoGP, and go forward in different things in my life,” Stoner told the assembled press. "After so many years of doing this sport which I love, and which myself and my family made so many sacrifices for, after so many years of trying to get to where we have gotten to at this point, this sport has changed a lot and it has changed to the point where I am not enjoying it. I don't have the passion for it and so at this time it's better if I retire now. "There are a lot of things that have disappointed me, and also a lot of things I have loved about this sport, but unfortunately the balance has gone in the wrong direction. And so, basically, we won't be continuing any more. It would be nice if I could say I would stay one more year, but then where does it stop? So we decided to finish everything as we are now.” Stoner, who won the 2007 MotoGP™ with Ducati and the 2011 crown with Honda, currently leads the 2012 standings by a single point ahead of Jorge Lorenzo heading into this weekend's fourth round.
Rossi plans at least two more years in MotoGP™Speaking to the press ahead of the Monster
Energy Grand Prix de Rossi stated his desire to ride on for at least two further years in the Championship as he made it abundantly clear that retirement was not on his radar. "For me it's very difficult to understand where the news starts because I never speak about my retirement, and I want to race in MotoGP for the next two years for sure,” said the Italian. Rossi also confirmed that he would be at Mugello in the aftermath of the Le Mans weekend, in order to make up for the cancelled day of testing at Estoril which was lost to poor weather. "For us it was important, because we had some new stuff to try,” said Rossi. "For this race here it [the set-up] will be the same [as in Portugal] and next week we will go to Mugello for some testing, where we can try some new parts so we can increase our speed.” Looking ahead to this weekend's fourth round, for which the practice sessions commence on Friday morning, Rossi continued: "I like the track, it's good, it's difficult and you always have to fight with the weather! But we come here from having not such a bad weekend in Portugal, and we will continue in that way and try to improve our performance to get closer to the guys in front of us. "Last year was our best result with the Ducati here, so we will see. We are optimistic and we will try to improve our performance.” |
Reigning MotoGP™ World Champion Casey Stoner
confirmed on Thursday that he would retire from the sport at the end of
the 2012 season.
France at Le Mans, the nine-time World Champion
refuted rumours that had surfaced about his possible retirement at the
end of the current season.