Stoner still 'lost' over illness

The former champion underwent a series of medical tests in America after the Laguna Seca event in a bid to discover why he has struggled with ill health for several weeks, but although his Ducati team announced that slight gastritis and mild anaemia had been found, Stoner reckoned he was no closer to understanding his problem.

"I had what felt like litres of blood taken for every blood test imaginable," he told the official MotoGP website. "We had gastric tests, scans, basically everything, glucose tests.

"I went to the doctor twice in two days and get tested for everything we could think of, and everything showed up negative. We didn't really find anything.

"This is disappointing because at least if we'd found something we would know what to do to fix it. But at the moment we're just riding around lost.

"We don't know what to do to fix this issue. We're just going to have to keep trying to not let the points gap increase too much and see what happens at the end of the season."

Although he still felt unwell in Germany, he hoped that he might manage the physical demands of the race better if today's wet conditions continued for the weekend.

"If it's going to be wet conditions in the next two days it's perfect for us," said Stoner. "Maybe we can go further in the race and maybe have a chance to win if we can find a good setting in these conditions.

"But at the moment we still need to work a lot with the bike. The feeling is quite good in the dry, but we need to work in the wet."