Stoner suffers mystery injury

From motogp.com

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 tire 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."