Ducati laud Stoner's resurgence

Ducati team boss Livio Suppo says Casey Stoner has shown hitherto unseen strength of character by recovering from his recent troubles to recapture winning form and move back into title contention.

Although the reigning champion won the Qatar season-opener, he then struggled for several races and saw Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa pull away in the championship.

But after commanding back-to-back wins at Donington Park and Assen, Stoner is now within 29 points of series leader Pedrosa.

Suppo told reporters in the Netherlands that Stoner's resurgence showed he was an even better rider than it had seemed when he was dominating last season's championship.

"First of all he's shown he has great talent and character, because besides Qatar it's been a difficult start to the season, and the points gap became so big that you needed a great character to still believe you could do it," said Suppo.

"He's shown he has it, it's an aspect we didn't yet know about Casey, in the sense that he didn't have all these problems last year.

"It's easy to get stronger and stronger when things go well, while to get back to being unbeatable as he's done these last races after difficult times is a very impressive demonstration of character."

Stoner has been untouchable at the front of the field ever since changes to the Ducati's engine management system in post-race testing at Catalunya calmed the Desmosedici's handling.

Suppo said the alterations had had a remarkable effect on Stoner.

"It's incredible how you just needed to improve the bike a bit to make him find last year's confidence and he's gone back to being in a different league," he said.

Although Suppo admitted that Ducati had gained ground, he again rejected any suggestions that Stoner was benefiting from a superior technical package - pointing out that Marco Melandri's dreadful results on the second Ducati proved that Stoner's riding was the critical factor in his form.

"Last year they would say it was the tyres, the bike, whatever else, while he gets in a different league regardless, as long as the bike functions well, he makes the difference," Suppo said.

"Besides this is a sport where the riders count. In Formula One the winning cars always bring the drivers up front, while here it's clearly not like that. It's not enough to have a winning bike, you also need a winning rider, so we are very happy he'll do a few more years with us."

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