Casey Stoner · Biography

On 16 October 2011, his birthday, Casey Stoner won the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island and sealed his second MotoGP title with two races still to run. Born on 16 October 1985 in Southport, Queensland, the Gold Coast rider won the premier-class crown with Ducati in 2007 and with Honda in 2011. He took 45 Grand Prix wins across all classes, 38 of them in MotoGP.

From dirt tracks to English tarmac

He started racing at the age of four on dirt tracks around the Gold Coast and spent his childhood in Australian dirt track and long track. Australian rules did not allow him to road race until he was 16, so in 2000 his family sold their farm and moved to England to let him make the switch. In his first year on tarmac he won the English Aprilia 125 championship. Between 2000 and 2002 he combined the national 125cc series in Britain and Spain.

Learning the trade in 125cc and 250cc

He made his world championship debut in 2001 in the 125cc class, on a Honda for the Telefónica MoviStar Junior Team. In 2002 he moved up to 250cc with Lucio Cecchinello’s LCR Aprilia team and finished twelfth. In 2003 he returned to the 125cc class, again on an Aprilia: he took his first podium in Germany and his first win at Valencia. In 2004 he raced for KTM, giving the Austrian factory its first victory in the class in Malaysia, and ended the year fifth. In 2005 he went back to 250cc with LCR, scoring five wins and ten podiums; a crash at Phillip Island handed the title to Dani Pedrosa and Stoner finished runner-up.

Ducati and the 2007 title

His MotoGP debut came in 2006 on the LCR Honda RC211V. He took pole in only his second premier-class race, finished second in Turkey and ended the season eighth. On 6 January 2007 he married Adriana Tuchyna in Adelaide, and that year he joined the Ducati Marlboro Team. On the Desmosedici he collected ten wins and fourteen podiums and clinched the championship at Motegi with a sixth place, Ducati’s first premier-class title. In 2008 he was runner-up to Valentino Rossi, with six wins and nine poles. In 2009 an illness, later linked to lactose intolerance, kept him out of the races at Brno, Indianapolis and Misano, and he finished fourth with four wins. In 2010 he was fourth again, with three victories.

Repsol Honda and a second championship

In 2011 he left Ducati for Repsol Honda. On the RC212V he took ten wins, sixteen podiums and twelve poles, and wrapped up the title at Phillip Island. On 17 May 2012, at the French Grand Prix press conference, he announced he would retire at the end of the season. A crash in qualifying at Indianapolis injured his ankle and cost him three races; he still won five Grands Prix and finished third. Between 2007 and 2012 he won the Australian Grand Prix six times in a row, and Phillip Island’s third corner bears his name. His world championship career ended with 176 starts, 45 wins, 89 podiums and 43 poles across all classes.

After MotoGP

In 2013 he raced a season of V8 Supercars with Triple Eight in a Holden, finishing eighteenth overall with a fifth place at Queensland Raceway as his best result. The same year he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. From 2013 to 2015 he worked as a Honda test rider, and in 2015 he returned to competition at the Suzuka 8 Hours, where a stuck throttle caused a crash that broke his scapula and tibia. In October 2015 he was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. From 2016 to 2018 he was a Ducati test rider. In 2019 he revealed that he lives with chronic fatigue syndrome.