Stoner's race comeback crashes

 

Following Casey Stoner 's second crash and DNF in a row at Misano - where he had yet again dominated throughout practice and qualifying - he effectively conceeded he now has no hope of defeating Rossi and holdng on to his MotoGP title. Battling the pain of a scaphoid fracture Stoner lost the front end of his bike six laps into the 28 lap contest at Misano.

Stoner said "It is very disappointing for the weekend to end like this after showing such a high level of performance in practice. Basically we took the decision to put one lap on the race tyre in warm-up this morning to get it scrubbed in: we've done it before and not had a problem but today I could feel from the first lap that the grip wasn't right. After a few laps it started to feel better and I was gaining confidence but it let go. It's a real shame but, anyway, we tried hard here and once again I think we've shown we are very fast, we have a great bike and tyres that work fantastically. This gives me confidence for next year and I'm looking forward to it already. As for the injury, it's huge disappointment this problem came out but I'll have to wait until the end of the season for an operation."

Filippo Preziosi (General Director, Ducati Corse) said "I'm really disappointed for Casey but it is important that we stay together as a team at a moment like this. We leave here knowing that we have a competitive bike, a good team and a truly great rider. I am proud to be able to work with Casey Stoner. In the early stages of the race Marco was held up by De Angelis and lost a lot of ground but it was great to see him at the end of the race setting lap times that would have been good enough for the podium. It is another step forward and we hope that he and Toni Elias - who had another splendid race and I want to congratulate him and his team for that - can consolidate their progress."

Stoner earlier had revealed that a small stone jammed in a throttle buttefly when he crashed at Brno, and that this stopped him at least salvaging some points in the Czech Republic.  He said “I wasn’t meant to have that bike going again. There was a stone caught in the butterflies that could not be a more perfect shape to fit in there. If it was another shaped stone - smaller or bigger - it would not have been a problem but it just perfectly jammed itself in there. It was a half-moon shape so that was it, race over.. You couldn’t go through that gravel trap and find the right sized stone again. I could have got back on and got some reasonable points.”  Brno was Stoner’s first DNF for Ducati in 30 races. At San Marino unfortunately his luck was no better.