STONER STORMS HOME IN THE DUNLOP SERIES

MARCH 2, 2013: Casey Stoner has all but silenced any doubters after a thrilling second race on the streets of Adelaide, the rookie V8 Supercars driver climbing a whopping 15 positions in just his second race on four wheels to finish the weekend on a high.

After a burst front tyre prematurely ended his debut race on Friday, Stoner was forced to start from the back of the 30–car grid.  But it didn’t take long for the competitor within to emerge.

With a re–tuned car and green tyres, the Red Bull Racing Australia driver launched quickly from the start and claimed his first pass before the first corner. And within five laps of the 23–lap race he’d made 10 more spots.

Despite having limited to no experience racing within the confines of unforgiving concrete walls, Stoner set the eighth fastest time of the race in his Red Bull Pirtek Holden. His race weekend, an overall success.

“My main goal today was not to flat–spot the tyre [like I did yesterday] and bring the car home, and I had a lot of fun,” Stoner said.

“Everyone was really good to race with, everyone gave racing room and I had a few battles there. It was very, very enjoyable and I wish we had another race tomorrow. But unfortunately that’s it for the weekend.”

The two–time MotoGP champion said he was starting to feel like a racecar driver but that he had a long way to go to become the driver he wants to be.

“I had a real taste for it yesterday and in general, we’ve now got more of an idea and things I thought I was going to be nervous about, I’m more OK with than I thought I’d be,” he said. still need a lot more experience. There’s still a lot of thing going on in the cockpit, set–up, geometry, that’s going to take me a long time to understand after 24 years learning about bikes.

"We were pretty happy with the way we went. We couldn’t get the car working right     yesterday but today the car was definitely a bit better and I felt more comfortable with it. Hopefully with time, things will start to come  but honestly, I just want to have a bit of fun and go and race some guys.”

Despite making 15 passes, the Red Bull Pirtek Holden emerged unscathed form the race.

“Everybody was giving me as hard a time as I was giving them, so I felt like part of the class,” he said.

“We made things hard for ourselves starting to far back but our pace was pretty good. It could have been better. It would have been nice to see what we could do without the oil [on the track].”

And with that, Stoner has plenty of time for thought and development ahead of his next race in Perth on the first weekend of May.