Casey Stoner has weighed in on the Valentino Rossi-Marc Marquez spat that has dominated headlines on-and-off in MotoGP since 2015. It’s a feud that still captures the raging imagination of fans from across the MotoGP spectrum even 10 years on, especially as Marquez now prepares to team up with Rossi’s protege, Francesco Bagnaia, at Ducati this year. For Stoner, it’s also one in which Marquez has “deserved” the criticism levelled by some at him. “Marc [Marquez], to a certain degree, deserved his criticism,” Stoner said on the Ducati Diaries podcast. “He tried to get in there.” Stoner affirmed, though, that the blame for the whole spat lay at Rossi’s door – Marquez was simply responding to an attack. “Even though people blame Marc for the whole thing,” Stoner said, “people forget that Valentino [Rossi] started it. “Marc’s Marc, we’ve watched him do that all through his racing, and then Valentino started a war of words. “They were all friends, and all the rest of it, then Valentino started something, and then Marc retaliated because he didn’t like it. “And then of course everybody blows up about that, forgetting that Valentino went and poked the bear.” Stoner explained that the fallout […]