Casey Stoner and Ducati: “They took me as a fallback, they wanted Melandri.”

Comes a world championship, but today the backstory makes people discuss.

Casey Stoner remembers Ducati, but with words destined to cause discussion. The Australian centaur entrò into the history of the Borgo Panigale manufacturer by winning the MotoGP championship title in 2007, yet today he reveals that he perceived his engagement as a temporary solution. In his opinion, in fact, the team had hired him only to buy time before Marco Melandri became free.

"My negotiations with Ducati over time had stalled twice,” Stoner explained in an interview for 'TNT Sports' -first in 2005 and 2006, when I could go to the satellite team, and then the next year when I then came to the factory team. Then everything è calmed down, but they were using me as a pretext to get to someone else and convince them to sign on with a less lucrative deal".

"At one point I ended up with nothing in my hand, then Ducati è got closer again. We knew però that I would only be a replacement for Marco Melandri, whose previous contract would only expire in 2008. They considered mine a sabbatical year and did not want to keep me, they can pretend it was not so; but I was just a fallback. They wanted Marco to build the all-Italian team they dreamed of. Then forò I won the championship", continued Stoner in his reconstruction of that historic 2007.