The Greatest of All Time (GOAT) debate in most sports is highly contentious and MotoGP is no exemption. For many, the first name that comes to mind is Valentino Rossi, especially for those who grew up watching his victories. For newer fans, Marc Marquez is the obvious choice due to his dominance of the 2010s. Going further back, we have Giacomo Agostini who notched up 20 consecutive premier class races between 1968 and 1969 and who holds the record of eight World Championships. Rossi himself concedes Agostini as the better rider, but most would argue the difficulty of comparing the 1960s and 1970s with the more competitive modern era.
Another name that often gets thrown into the mix is Casey Stoner. The Australian had a short MotoGP career, having decided to pull the plug early in 2012 after just seven premier class seasons. In that time, Stoner won two World Championships and nearly 40 races.
People make cases for each of these riders, and others, being the GOAT because the measure of greatness is subjective. It's not purely a case of looking at the numbers as they'll never show the complete picture. What's equally important is how people felt while watching a rider. This is why many people claim Roger Federer to be the GOAT of tennis, despite him winning less Grand Slams than Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic.
In this article I don't attempt to make a case for why Stoner may or may not have been the GOAT. Instead, I take a look at some key metrics to try and understand how good he really was.
Stoner had a far shorter career than other greats, such as Rossi, Lorenzo, and Marquez, so total wins doesn't tell us much about how good he was. A better metric is win percentage, and Stoner's was 33%, which is nearly identical to that currently of Marc Marquez.
| Agostini | Doohan | Stoner | Marquez | Bagnaia | Rossi | Lorenzo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60.53% | 39.42% | 33.04% | 32.80% | 27.36% | 23.92% | 23.15% |
Another insightful metric is average finishing position (excluding retirements). Stoner rarely finished outside the top 6 and had an average finishing position of 3.02. This is lower than Rossi, Marquez, Lorenzo, and Eddie Lawson. Multiple World Champions that have a lower averages include Mick Doohan, Wayne Rainey, Kenny Roberts, Mike Hailwood and, of course, Agostini. This demonstrates that Casey never had a bad season and was competitive at all tracks in all conditions, and was more consistent then any other rider of his era.
| Agostini | Roberts | Rainey | Doohan | Stoner | Lawson | Marquez | Rossi | Lorenzo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.78 | 2.36 | 2.45 | 2.51 | 3.02 | 3.17 | 3.53 | 4.09 | 4.37 |
Besides being good at full race distance, Stoner could also pull out a lap when he most needed it. As a result, he was an excellent qualifier and was on pole nearly 34% of the time. His average qualifying position was 3.53, which is better than anyone in the modern era. These numbers are strong evidence for making a case that Stoner was the best qualifier in the history of motorcycle racing.
| Stoner | Marquez | Lorenzo | Martin | Pedrosa | Rossi | Bagnaia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.53 | 4.05 | 4.67 | 4.93 | 5.09 | 6.12 | 6.12 |
Many riders have said that Casey could just turn up and instantly ride at the limit of any bike. There are a couple of statistics that demonstrate this particularly well. FIrstly, that he won his two world titles with different manufacturers and won ten races in each of his winning seasons. The second is that Casey won at every track on the calendar throughout his time in MotoGP, which, given that he only raced for seven seasons, is remarkable.
Especially in Stoner's first season, people often attributed his success to the bike and tyres. Who can blame them as there was clear evidence on track that the Ducati was far superior to the rest of the grid in terms of top speed. Stoner also came out of nowhere in 2007, having finished 8th in the standings in 2006, with a second place in Turkey being his best result.
However, if this was the case, you'd expect Stoner's teammates to also be challenging for the title, given that they were also some of the best riders on the grid. Loris Capirossi had won eight races before joining Stoner in 2007, so was a very capable rider, but could only manage 7th in the championship standings that year. Stoner took their head-to-head 16-2 and when he finished in front of Capirossi, he did so by an average of around 20 seconds. 2008 and 2009 were similar stories, with Stoner trouncing his teammates Marco Melandri and Nicky Hayden. The former was once touted as the next Rossi and the latter was a former World Champion. Melandri was finishing towards the back of the during nearly every race in 2008 and complained about how unrideable the Ducati was that year. In 2009, Hayden didn’t fare a whole lot better and Stoner finished ahead of him in each of the 13 races he started by an average of 23 seconds. In summary, therefore, the head-to-head stats well and truly debunk that Stoner was on a superior bike whilst at Ducati.
The only season Stoner failed to get the better of his teammate was in 2012, when he lost out to Dani Pedrosa 7-8.
All the statistics I've mentioned provide strong evidence that Stoner was one of the most talented people to ever ride a MotoGP bike. In my book, only Marquez is on a par in terms of raw ability. What's more impressive is that Stoner's achievements came in an era with three other greats - Rossi, Lorenzo, and Pedrosa. He also had health issues that ruled out his title hopes in 2009 and plagued him in following seasons. The question of what could have been often surrounds Stoner, had he not retired so young.
