Rossi wary of refreshed Stoner

The immediate return to form of Australian MotoGP star Casey Stoner has reinforced series leader Valentino Rossi's fear of being overtaken by the sports young guns before he can achieve his ultimate goal.

Rossi is headed towards his seventh world title in the elite class and at the age of 30 has given himself just two more years to break the record of eight held by fellow Italian Giacomo Agostini.
Stoner, 23, stunned his rivals by finishing second in the recent Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril on his return from a 10-week break from the sport to try to resolve a mystery illness.
The race was won by 22-year-old Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo, who, with Stoner, is one of the new force of young riders Rossi is trying to keep at bay.
"If I am not strong, I know that Casey and Jorge will eat me in one bite," Rossi said.
"Earlier this season I was not very strong, not fast enough, so it was like when you start to lose blood in front of a shark.
"In this case, Stoner and Lorenzo are the sharks and they look at me with a little bit of blood flowing and maybe they thought, 'OK, now is the time'.
"They both finished ahead of me in Mugello (in Italy) in May and they thought now we have beaten Valentino in Italy we can beat him everywhere.
"But fortunately I became stronger."
After treading water early in the season, Rossi has now won six times from 13 races. Combined his main rivals Lorenzo (4), Stoner (2) and Dani Pedrosa (1) have won seven.
"This is very important because I now have more wins than Stoner and Lorenzo combined so I have to continue like this," Rossi said.
"But even with six wins from 13 races it is a very tough championship.
"I have strong rivals who give everything to try and beat me so I have to give more than 100 per cent to stay at the top."
Both Stoner and Lorenzo had each won two early-season races to get a jump on Rossi before Stoner was slowed by an unknown virus which sapped his energy at the Barcelona GP.
To try to recover he took a mid-season break and was been missing from racing since finishing 14th in the British GP in late July.
Because of his absence on sick leave Stoner has slipped to fourth in the standings with the championship now out of reach.
Rossi holds an 18-point lead over Lorenzo with three races remaining, including next week's Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island.

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