MotoGP, Forcada: "The fastest of all? Without a doubt, Casey Stoner"

Many fans continue asking the same question about riders who race or have raced in the MotoGP. Some are nice, some are winners, others are successful, and then there are those who, despite not having won a lot, have left a mark. But who can be defined as the absolute fastest, the one who, more than any, has been able to take their bikes to the limit and often even beyond?

Each one of us has an answer based on personal tastes, on our own opinions. There’s no objective criterion for this answer. We could take into consideration Agostini's 15 titles, or Marc Marquez's dominance in the MotoGP, without obviously forgetting Valentino Rossi who’s written many pages in the history of motorcycling.

But if you ask this question to a crew chief who has worked in the paddock for many years and knows the potential of each individual rider perfectly well, the matter changes slightly. This is the case of Ramon Forcada, who was interviewed by his colleague, Manuel Pecino. Forcada has been a cornerstone in the MotoGP. He’s had a very long career that has led him to work alongside top champions in the pits. Champions like Sete Gibernau, Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner, Maverick Vinales, and Franco Morbidelli.

When he was at Yamaha with Lorenzo, he could read Valentino Rossi’s data and, when he was in Stoner's corner with Honda LCR in 2006 (the Australian's debut MotoGP season), he obviously had access to data from riders like Pedrosa and Hayden, HRC’s official riders. In short, he has a very broad picture of the situation and also a very precise opinion.

"The fastest? I’d say everyone, but the fastest was Casey Stoner,” Forcada said. “In other words, by the third lap, he was already the best, but on tracks he wasn’t familiar with, not on tracks he already knew well. On this point, he was the fastest.  Some are very fast right away without preparing anything because they don't need anything, and others need everything to be fast. In the end, these are different situations. Some riders say: ‘We’re not fast now, but we're working on it, we know what we're doing, we know we'll get there and, when everything goes well, the time will come.'. And then we have the talented ones, those who get by easily and are already very fast as soon as they hit the track.”