On the eve of the 2008 edition of the Gran Premi Cinzano de Catalunya, last year´s top three finishers were all present at the pre-event press conference to talk about past, present and future for the Barcelona visit.

Casey Stoner, currently on the back foot in his quest to retain the MotoGP World Championship crown, finds himself in a very different scenario to this time last season. He was the winner of the three-way tussle in 2007, extending his lead in the standings, but now finds himself playing catch-up from fourth place.

`This has always been one of my favourite tracks, even when I started riding in the Spanish Championship,´ said Stoner, whose 2007 triumph was his first Grand Prix win in northeast Spain.

`Right now we´re not chasing the championship; we´re just taking things race-by-race in kind of the same way that we did last year. Right now we have nothing to lose except for more points, so we´re just going to do what we can.´

Valentino Rossi, current leader of the World Championship and on a three-race winning streak, lost out to Stoner in last year´s thriller. He acknowledged the fine form in which he finds himself, and sees no reason why things can´t work as well as in Mugello just one week ago.

`We are coming from a positive period, and this is also a circuit that I like,´ said the Fiat Yamaha man. `For this track we can use a similar setting to what we ran in Mugello, but we will wait until tomorrow to adapt it. The last race here was a great battle, with a lot of overtaking.´

Whilst joining in the plaudits for the 2007 race, home rider Dani Pedrosa also made his affections for the track known. In addition, the Spaniard confirmed that Repsol Honda will not be running the pneumatic-valve engine in Catalunya until Monday´s post-race test.

`This track is a special place, close to home. Last time it was probably the best race of the year, but I wasn´t really involved so much at the end,´ admitted Pedrosa. `I will probably not be using the pneumatic valve engine here. I think that it will be clearer and more intelligent to use it in the Monday test.


www.motogp.com/en/news/2008