The Ride that No One Wanted

For little ol' Ducati to dominate and ultimately win the MotoGP title in the Japanese manufacturers' backyard at Motegi is a day that will begin to change the sport's axis.

Honda and Yamaha have invested millions in their riders, and yet the 21-year-old kid who was back of the queue this time last year goes out and smokes them right from the get-go.

"They are the only team who have listened to me," is what Casey said in Qatar, and yet people only picked up on that this weekend, when he repeated it while wearing the champion's T shirt. They adore him in that team. Who can blame them?

Casey Stoner on the LCR Honda in the 2006 Italian Grand Prix at Mugello © DPPI

He can come into the garage in a right huff after swearing at other riders out on the track who 'dared' to be out there at the same time, but Stoner does get on with the job like no other.

Ah, for the bravery of youth. He just gets on with it and thrashes the ass out of it. Other riders are just left to look at the lap times and shake their heads.

Stoner owes a massive amount of his bonus package to Livio Suppo. He pushed for Stoner instead of Sete Gibernau in 2006, trying to give him his first MotoGP ride straight up from winning a few 250 races.

Suppo would definitely have been certified had that come off, but it was never going to with a championship runner-up, a big name in Spain and a former Marlboro rider as the other option.

But then came September 2006 and Gibernau was asking 'for the moon'. Besides that, he was damaged goods after breaking his collarbone for the umpteenth time at Estoril.

Nicky Hayden slept with the Ducati contract under his pillow for a few weeks but got swung back over by the Honda big wigs in Japan, who got him to re-sign for 2007 and 2008 after meetings full of promises. I agree with everything Hayden does, but I winced last year when I heard 'but they promised me'.

Marco Melandri was next on Ducati's list, but he had to wait until into October to find out whether Fausto Gresini was going to take him up on his option to keep him on one of his Hondas for 2007. Ducati were running out of ideas.

Stoner on a works Ducati for 2007. I thought they were mad. And I told Suppo as such. How wrong I was as I was out first ball, middle stump out of the ground at Qatar. And I told Suppo as such that evening in the desert after saying it on air. I got him wrong. How embarrassing...

If anyone else said at the time that they thought he could win the title by mid-September against Honda in a regulation change year, with a bike designed for their main rider, with Valentino Rossi still on the grid, is lying.

Only the inner circle of those who'd seen him ride through winter testing and seen the data traces, the speed, the commitment at Phillip Island, could have had an inkling of championship champagne.

"I think we have been lucky to sign Casey, to be honest. Everybody knew he was fast, nobody in this paddock knew he could be world champion this year," said Suppo on Sunday evening.

2007 MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner © DPPI

Incredible.

Suppo was the one who put his balls on the line to get Bridgestone, openly admitting that if it didn't work, he'd have been well out of a job.

So to then go for Stoner and have even Capirossi whacked backwards this season by the Aussie's speed just beggars belief. It was a fairytale - and all this from a little team that started in MotoGP at the beginning of 2003.

This is the glimmer of hope for the BMWs and the KTMs to get in now before things change again. Stop being wrapped up in board meetings and spending squillions of dollars on F1; the budget for one F1 race could fund a MotoGP team to the stars and get your sales figures going equally as high.

Just watch Ducati's sales the world over now they have the 1098, the forthcoming 1200 Superbike and the MotoGP World Champion. It really isn't rocket science, gentlemen...

Spin this sport around shall we? Honda Racing Corporation have a budget of US$320m (£159m), Yamaha have Rossi, Suzuki and Kawasaki Heavy Industries have budgets that would make F1 teams' eyes bulge, and yet 100 people in Bologna beat them.

An historic day.