Stoner disappointed and frustrated
Despite riding with a fractured right foot and torn ligaments, Casey Stoner says he was "frustrated" not to have finished on the podium in Indianapolis.
Stoner tore ligaments in his right ankle and suffered several small chipped bone fractures when he had a violent high-side in the first ten minutes of Saturday's qualifying.
The Aussie received immediate medical treatment at the track, vowing to do his utmost to contest the Indianapolis MotoGP just 24 hours after the crash. And he did.
Stoner was on the grid wearing a special boot to protect his injured foot, lining-up in sixth place, from which he launched an attack for the podium.
However, with his painkillers wearing off halfway through the race, the reigning World Champion was not able to maintain his charge and lost out to Andrea Dovizioso.
"I'm definitely disappointed with how the weekend went," the Honda rider said. "We had a strong start on Friday morning and then had a few issues Friday afternoon in FP2.
"We showed that we certainly had the pace for pole position and fight for the win but unfortunately I had a huge crash in qualifying. The injuries I sustained from the crash made things very difficult for us and we lost precious track time to work on the set-up.
"In warm-up I was just getting comfortable on the bike and trying to get a feel for everything rather than working on set-up."
"The race was equally as difficult.
"We had a rough start and got pushed back some positions and had to fight our way back through. As soon as we did, unluckily Ben had a bike failure and I found myself in the middle of the smoke, unsure where I was going and what I might hit and we lost positions again.
"At the end of the race it was almost impossible to maintain the pace. The painkillers I took to dull the pain gradually wore off at around the half-way point and as I was compensating for my injury with the other side of my body, I simply had no energy left.
"It was frustrating to give up the podium position to Andrea but we did everything we could and at least I was able to ride and take some points."
The race was won by his teammate Dani Pedrosa with Jorge Lorenzo second meaning Stoner remains third in the standings, 39 points behind the Yamaha rider and 21 adrift of Pedrosa.
