Casey Stoner: ‘I haven’t been asked to race in MotoGP’

Awww… that’s real shame if it turns out to remain as the racing status quo, but it looks like former World Champion Casey Stoner is definitely NOT going to racing in the next round of the MotoGP championship.

There seemed to be a chance that the Aussie, who is currently on test-riding duties with the Ducati factory, might be out in full-on racing anger for the upcoming round when full-time rider Danilo Petrucci pulled out of the opening round in Qatar last Friday.

Petrucci said that the pain in his mangled right hand was too great to continue with for the immediate future. The Italian crashed earlier this year in a test at Phillip Island in Australia and had the have his right hand screwed back together. After an X-ray in Qatar it was discovered that one of the 12 broken bones in Petrucci’s throttle hand had dislocated.

So Petrucci was out of action and it was too close to the meeting to draft anyone else, like Stoner, into the vacant seat alongside Scott Redding in the squad.

But it did seem a possibility that Stoner might be out in action in Argentina, a chance that the Aussie himself has apparently now set straight. Stoner said: “We are just concentrating on testing. There have been no talk or plans for the future or the next races. I am a test rider, I am not filling in. There may be the option but I haven’t been asked and nor will I be, probably.”