The Rumor Mill: Casey Stoner

Honda Racing has announced former Multi-MotoGP world champion, Casey Stoner will return to the track for the first time after a year of retirement, he retired 2012 from Grand Prix Racing.

Stoner will be conducting four tests in Motegi, Japan as of August 6th aboard the RC213V. Stoner is also scheduled to test the production Honda for next years MotoGP teams. There's speculation that this will be the stepping stone-r to his coming back but we'll have to wait and see.

HRC boss, Huhei Nakamoto stated in an interview published on MD that ‟if [Stoner] ever decides to come back he will find a warm welcome waiting [from Honda].” Both Honda and Stoner are currently denying that there are any plans for Stoner to race at this point, either as a wild card or under contract. It's hardly speculation however, that Honda would love to see Stoner alongside Marc Marquez at some time in the future. However Stone and Shuhei Nakamoto have both offered their comments in the announcement, which are below.

**Casey Stoner:** It's been almost 7 months now since Valencia and I'm still happy and comfortable with the decision I made to stop racing. Sometimes I miss riding my RCV, so I am happy that HRC asked me to do some tests in Motegi this year. This will allow me to enjoy what I miss: riding a MotoGP bike! I'm looking forward to getting on the bike and see how it has changed from last year and I'd like to thank Honda for this opportunity.

**Shuhei Nakamoto: **We are very pleased to have Casey back on a Honda! He knows this machine very well and I'm sure he can help our engineers and technicians with the development of the RC213V. We will also ask him to test the new production racer and give us his initial feedback to assist us in producing the best machine possible.