#and casey thinks valentino didnt rate him lmaoooo casey he might be evil but hes not an idiot can we be serious here

[batsplat]

It didn't turn out quite as we'd planned because I got sick, really sick. I had cold sweats and a terrible fever, to the point where I couldn't walk and could hardly talk or even hear because my ears were blocked up. I was starting to improve when we made the short drive over the Austrian border for me to catch a flight from Vienna to Doha, Qatar, for the second race of the season. I had to say goodbye to Adri as she was going home to Adelaide. When we arrived in Vienna we found out our flight had been delayed for 24 hours, so we ended up driving back to Adri's family's place until the next day. When we did eventually get a flight, for some bizarre reasons the woman at the check-in put my tickets together with some guy who was travelling in business class who I didn't know. I didn't worry too much about it then but when I went to transfer to our connecting flight in Dubai they wouldn't let me board the plane until the guy turned up, even though my name was on the list. I waited for everyone to board and of course the guy didn't show. He must have taken an earlier flight but I had no way of knowing for sure. I was furious! I had to go ll the way out of the terminal and book another flight but there wasn't an available seat until the next day. I didn't have a credit card back then so that made things a lot more difficult too. I spent 24 hours in Dubai airport and arrived in Doha 48 hours later than planned, with only an hour to spare before the first free practice was due to start.

^Casey Stoner in FP1

I spoke to Lucio when I landed and he said, 'If your bags don't arrive within five minutes just leave them.' I arrived at the track ten minutes before the session started, got changed, got on the bike and set the fastest time of the session. I was four-tenths of a second quicker than my closest challenger, who was Valentino Rossi. I ran second fastest in the second session that afternoon, fastest in the third free practice the next morning and then qualified on pole position. I was the second youngest rider ever to do that after Grand Prix legend Freddie Spencer.

^Casey Stoner before the race

I suppose it was a bit too much to ask for that momentum to continue through the race. Since 2008 we have ridden at night in Qatar because the organisers wanted to introduce a night race into the calendar. Qatar was always a good race for us because of the hot conditions, the tyres would overheat causing the bike to move around a lot more, and that suited me. I enjoyed racing in the heat but because of my lack of sleep and the hectic flight my sickness started to get worse again. I wasn't able to recuperate so by race day I was already worn out. I managed to hold off Rossi and lead for the opening nine laps of the race but I was tired so wasn't able to be as aggressive on the bike as I needed to be and I gradually dropped out of the podium positions and finished fifth, which was still a good result considering the lead-up, I wanted better though.

^Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi fighting in the race, shaking hands afterwards

from Casey Stoner's 'Pushing the Limits' about Qatar 2006, his second premier class race and first pole position