World MotoGP champion Casey Stoner has warned his rivals to expect a surge after the mid-season break which will catapult him into a fight for consecutive crowns.
Stoner, second in Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix behind five-times world champion Valentino Rossi, said all the factors in the second half of the year pointed to a major Ducati revival.
Rossi won his seventh straight race at Mugello, beating Stoner and Spaniard Dani Pedrosa to strengthen his championship lead.
He heads the standings from Pedrosa and rookie Jorge Lorenzo with Stoner fourth, 46 points off the pace, but the Australian remains unfazed.
“Things haven't gone well at the beginning of the season but it's always a lot better if things go well at the end of the season,” Stoner said.
“If we're going to have this bad luck I prefer to get it over and done with at the start and then come home strong.
“I think a lot of the tracks towards the end of the season suit myself a little bit better and our package so we can really start to push.
“We do every week but I believe some of the circuits we're coming up to can be a little bit better suited to us.”
Stoner said that a last minute decision by his team had produced a competitive bike but a minor blunder could have cost him the race win.
“I was a little bit worried because Friday was completely wet and we didn't really have too much time on Saturday.
“Luckily on the last two laps before my qualifying tyre we found the solution which was coming back to what we had on the Saturday morning.
“So I felt reasonably confident going into the race. We knew we had the package, especially at the end of the race - I prefer to ride a little harder at the end.
“But unfortunately probably halfway through I made a big enough mistake - not a really big one - but big enough to lose ground and lose position.
“After this I took a few laps to get back my rhythm and I sort of struggled after that. I definitely wasn't riding my best.
“Then I pulled myself back together and we started to do some really good lap times.
“I believe if we hadn't made that mistake it might have been a bit closer at the end but anyway Valentino was riding without any mistakes and making the difference,” he said.
