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Casey Stoner may well be heading for a good run here. Two wins in three races is pretty good going whatever you are doing, especially when at a new team. On Sunday he took 19 points out of Valentino Rossi who is still the favourite for the title because of his sheer genius. Or is he?
Stoner may now be getting to a point where he can say to the engineers at Ducati: "Hey, listen to me and make some parts to make us go even quicker." And may he do that quickly, because although Sunday in Turkey was a relative disaster for Rossi, he will not be down for long, during which time, Ducati need to get a march on the Japanese to build up a buffer of points. No different to what Hayden did last season with a 51-point lead in July last year.
Is there a dilemma for Ducati to listen further to Stoner rather than to the multiple race winner and world champion Loris Capirossi, who is twelve years older? This has to be the time for Ducati to build further with the Aussie, with the new mellowed out father that is Capirossi as his faithful wing-man. These are truly crucial times for the Bologna team.
Ducati are still hurting from last year's big crash at Barcelona, when one of their own in the shape of Sete Gibernau put his wheel just two inches to the right onto the white line that is marked on the road for F1 cars not to cross when exiting the pits. Down they all went, two Ducati riders injured and in the ambulance. It was not his fault, just a racing incident.
