‘Game over’ for injured Casey Stoner

MotoGP News
Date: 23/August/2012

It’s ‘game over’ for Casey Stoner’s hopes of retiring as a triple MotoGP champion after the Repsol Honda rider withdrew from this weekend’s Brno round to undergo surgery in Australia.

Stoner suffered fractures and ligament damage to his right ankle in a huge highside crash during qualifying at Indianapolis last Saturday, then braved the pain to finish fourth in the race.

But after a specialist in Australia viewed the scans, Stoner was advised against riding this weekend and will instead undergo surgery.

Stoner explained: “We've been waiting since Indianapolis for my doctor in Australia to receive the discs of the MRI scan and x-rays to fully understand the situation.

“The doctors in America were fantastic but I needed a specialist to study them and give me his report and explain exactly what's gone wrong.

“We were hoping that once they had seen the scans that it wouldn't be as bad as I first suspected and that we could race here, but in fact it was the opposite and a lot worse than first expected.

“We only found out at lunchtime today that it was ‘game over’ but it seems this is our only option at this point.”

Stoner, who won last year’s Czech round, now has just two weeks’ to recover if he is to make the Misano round from September 14-16 and an October return is seen as more likely.

Stoner said: “We don't have a timescale for my return yet - it depends on the surgery and how fast I can recover.  We still have a season to complete and this isn't just me giving up, I want to get back to racing as soon as possible.

“I have a job to do and a career to see through to the end and for it to finish like this would be a disaster, so I'll be back as soon as I can to take part in as many races as I can before the end of the season.”

Stoner is third in the championship and 39 points behind Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo with seven rounds to go.

Ducati’s Nicky Hayden has already been ruled out of this weekend’s event after also suffering a big accident in qualifying last Saturday.