MotoGP news

Stoner confident he can race on Sunday

Casey Stoner suffered from a heavy crash in Saturday's qualifying session for the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. The former MotoGP champion blames his cold tyres for the crash. He expects to be ready in time for Sunday's race though after a painful fall of his bike.

"To be honest the bike had given us a few warnings in a lot of places around the circuit today and I'm sure there were a lot of other guys in a similar situation," Stoner said. "The tyre is quite hard on the right-hand side and needs a couple of laps to warm up properly. Unfortunately on the lap before the crash, in the most important corner for heating that side of the tyre up I was held up by two riders having a disagreement and then I got stuck behind one of them into the next right-hander too. I was wary that the tyre would be cooler than I needed it to be on the next lap so I went into turn three a lot more carefully than normal, but as I closed the gas on the way into the corner the rear just came around. I tried to pick the bike up and go straight into the gravel but it didn't want to and that was it - it threw me straight up in the air!

"It hurt when I landed but I thought I'd only winded myself - now it looks like I might have torn something in my groin, which is not the best thing to happen before the race. Anyway, we have a great bike for this track so we'll see what we can do."

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