When Casey Stoner and the Ducati factory ended their collaboration, some said that we would find the Australian again as a test rider at Honda. The same position he held while wearing the red jumpsuit. Even the team manager Alberto puig did not rule out this possibility, considering it at least interesting. But since, Marc Marquez expressed himself by giving an unfavorable opinion. A trend confirmed by the linchpin of the LCR team: Christophe Bourguignon…
The two arguments have one thing in common: Stefan Bradl. If the German is occasionally the victim of Cal Crutchlow, on the other hand, he is dubbed in his role as tester. Marc Marquez commented on it: “ I am very happy with the fact that we now have a real test team in Europe. I put a lot of pressure on Honda to get there. I requested that we set up a professional test team in Europe, with a fast driver. Now we have Stefan, he was world champion in Moto2, he has a lot of talent. He is close to our level. He also makes comments very similar to mine towards engineers. It's positive. I am very happy with the performance of our test team ».
For his part, Bourguignon adds speedweek : " hiring Casey Stoner wouldn't make sense. Stefan lives in Europe. It can be called at any time and tested somewhere in Europe the next day. And we know Stefan. He is very consistent and stable when he drives. He can do a lot of tricks. He has really done a good job for Honda this year. Stefan comes anytime, whenever you need him. He gave us good feedback. We were very pleased with his performance in November ».
Meanwhile, the assessment of the contribution of Stoner to Ducati is subject to caution. If, politically, it is underlined, on the ground, we are less convinced, like a Pirro who recently recalled the sum of his own work compared to that of the former double titled…
