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The 2007 season marked a new beginning for MotoGP as the bikes dropped down to 800cc and the series got a new champion in the form of 21-year-old Australian Casey Stoner. Stoner left Valentino Rossi and pre-season favourite Dani Pedrosa floundering, but 2007 saw Suzuki and Kawasaki up their game, and their riders - John Hopkins, Chris Vermeulen and Randy de Puniet - regularly fighting for rostrum finishes. It was a season that made history. The new bikes were slower down the straights but riders could brake later and carry more speed through the corners, resulting in a different type of racing but lap times that matched last years more powerful machines.
Everyone thought that the engineers of the giant Honda company would produce the motorcycle the rest had to beat, as they did when MotoGP arrived in 2002, but it didn't turn out like that. Ducati, the smallest company in MotoGP, fielded a brilliantly designed bike and a great new Champion raced it to ten wins in 18 races. Casey Stoner's season was nothing short of brilliant.
In his first season as a factory rider, his first on a Ducati, and his first on Bridgestone tyres, the Australian racked up an amazing string of performances. In only his second season in the top class, Casey's career statistics for win rate and number of wins in a season are only bettered by three all-time greats: Giacomo Agostini, Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi. And you just know there's more to come.
In this fourth edition of the Official MotoGP Season Review, British Eurosport's MotoGP commentator, Julian Ryder, tells the story of each race with the vital assistance of Andrew Northcott's stunning photography. Neil Spalding provides the technical analysis of Ducati's first Grand Prix Championship winner as well as each bike on the grid individually with the help of stunning double-page photographs. There's also a round-up of each rider's season and a report on the activities of MotoGP's official charity, Riders for Health. And there's the unique and authoritative Riders' Rider of the Year poll in which every rider votes. If you want to know who really is the fastest in the world you have to ask the racers themselves.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM HAYNES:
Official Isle of Man TT Review 2007, Edited by Gary Pinchin, ISBN: 978 1 84425 466 8, RRP: £19.99. Learn more...
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Review copies available
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