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Former world champion Casey Stoner says the sheer pace of MotoGP championship leader Jorge Lorenzo is forcing him to make mistakes.
The Australian says the dominance of the Spaniard is frustrating and he is losing points in his bid to try to close the gap.
Stoner scooped up another podium finish in his last season for Ducati before switching to Honda when he finished a distant second behind Lorenzo last week’s US Grand Prix.
He has been stunned by the consistent speed of Lorenzo who has not finished outside the top two in the opening nine races.
“He’s proven to be a worthy champion at this point,” Stoner told motorcyclenews.com.
“Jorge’s been so consistent and very fast as well. Every session he’s always there and he’s riding fantastically.
“When you’re riding up against somebody like that it’s very easy to make mistakes.
“When you have to try and gain so many points back, it’s easy for anyone to have some problems, so we’ve just got to keep going.
“I’m not in the running for the championship — I’m in the hunt for a top three in the championship,” Stoner said.
After a slow start with a number of unforced errors Stoner’s performances in recent grands prix have become less erratic.
Stoner has yet to win a race and did not score a podium until his third place in the Dutch GP on June 26.
He has since claimed third places in Spain and Germany and second in the US.
“I’m actually quite happy with the way I’m riding at the moment, but maybe a few too many mistakes is costing me,” Stoner said.
In the US he was quick off the line before running wide and losing time on lap six.
Stoner said in his bid to catch front-running Dani Pedrosa he lost the front end of his bike twice.
“And then a lap or two later I lost the front quite a lot and ran very wide and that’s when Jorge (Lorenzo) came by,” he said.
“I’m a little bit disappointed with that. We hadn’t really had any front-end issues all weekend, but it seems to be I wasn’t the only one with front-end issues because there were a lot of crashes.
“I’m lucky, I suppose, because I managed to keep it on two wheels.
“If I had a little bit more confidence in the front we could’ve gone faster, but that’s the way the race went,” Stoner said.
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