Stoner plays down criticism of Rossi

The two title rivals had a spectacular battle for the lead at Laguna Seca until Stoner went off the road and lost touch with Rossi. But afterwards the reigning champion was highly critical of the Italian's overtaking methods, and they had a heated exchange on the subject in front of television crews in parc ferme.

However, in the pre-race press conference at Brno today, Stoner backed down from his earlier comments and conceded that they had been made in the heat of the moment.

"All riders react in the way that we do sometimes, I think Valentino can agree with that," said Stoner. "I think at the time maybe we overreacted."

The Australian said he had put the disagreement behind him and was now focused on making up for his Laguna defeat in future races.

"I think I'm just going to be hopefully putting up more of a battle in the last few laps, whereas I ran off and crashed at the last race," he said. "It would be nice if I could put more of a battle on and at least pressure him to the last lap."

Rossi's victory in the USA has put him 25 points clear of Stoner in the championship battle, and the Ducati rider is now determined to strike back in the final part of the season.

"I would have liked the break to be a bit longer but we got everything done that we wanted to, thought things over, and got myself ready for this last part of the season," he said.

"It's going to be very hard. For Valentino those seven races are a long time but for us it's a short time. We always need more races, but we can only do what we can do, and we look forward to the last part of the season."