Stoner reveals mysterious hand fracture

Casey Stoner seemed to have had a perfect day in Misano on Friday but, for the second race in a row, the Australian revealed that things had not been as easy as they perhaps appeared. The reigning MotoGP World Champion was the fastest rider on-track at the San Marino circuit in both free practice sessions, but in the process picked up a mystery hand fracture that caused him some discomfort during his runs.

`I´ve just been to the doctors and they said that it could have come from a shake of the bike; I´ve basically fractured my scaphoid, which is an old injury from 2003,´said Stoner after becoming the only rider to breach the 1´35 barrier over the course of the day.

`I´ve fractured it at exactly the same place, and it´s causing quite lot of pain in some places. I'll have to brace it for tomorrow´s sessions.´

Stoner´s inopportune ailment was not the only aspect of the Friday that left the Ducati man feeling limited. Despite his position at the head of the timesheets and favourite for a seventh consecutive pole on Saturday, the 22 year-old is expecting further improvement from his setup in order to build up an insurmountable advantage over his rivals.

`We can still go quite a lot faster, which we´re happy about. Things that we tried out at the Brno test seem to be working quite well at this circuit, which is really good for us,´ Stoner continued. `Because this year we are having to use a lot harder tyre compounds on the right, the left can get a little slippery. We´re having to change the overall setup just to make it work a little better, and I think that tomorrow we should be able to find something.´