Stoner laments 'disastrous' result

Although Ducati were not on the lead pace at Jerez, Stoner was battling with eventual podium finishers Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo when he went off the road early on.

A second trip through the gravel in the closing stages left him in 11th place at the flag.

"We've been struggling a lot this weekend," Stoner told Italia1 television. "This circuit doesn't seem to be perfect for our package and we just wanted to get as many points as possible.

"Unfortunately I made a mistake under braking. I didn't feel like I changed my braking position, but I couldn't manage to stop in the corner and I ran off-track.

"It was a disaster, I think I went back to last position. But I thought if we could keep up a strong enough pace maybe I could take some points.

"It was looking very good, I think we were even able to arrive in fifth if we had kept going, but unfortunately I went to out-brake (Shinya) Nakano and he let off the brakes and came back in front of me, and that was the race over."

Stoner believes his errors made Ducati's performance look worse than it really was, as he was confident that fifth place was possible had he stayed on the road.

"You have to understand that normally we would have been fifth in this race, which is what we did last year," he said.

He said that the Ducati was simply not suited to Jerez, but expects other teams to have similar problems elsewhere.

"This track is just not perfect for us," Stoner said. "Also there are some other tracks where the other manufacturers struggle. You have to be as consistent as possible everywhere, but there are some tracks where the bike is just not working.

"I think we can look forward to the next few races because the bike works better at these places and maybe we can start to fight for victories again. But this weekend just was not the perfect weekend for us."