Stoner vows to attack more in 2009

Last season's world champion began 2008 with an opening round victory in Qatar, but then endured a string of difficult races in the spring. He rebounded with a hat-trick of dominant mid-season wins, only for consecutive crashes at Brno and Misano, then the recurrence of a wrist injury, to spoil the second half of his championship.

"I don't know if you can call it defending a title when you're behind for the whole championship," said Stoner.

"I think next year I'd like to try and attack again, but as for a defence, I don't think I did a very good job because apart from the first race we weren't leading the championship at any stage during it. We were the ones attacking the whole time.

"Going into next year we want to try to really get everything 100 per cent. I'm really looking forward to testing the new bike and getting underway."

Stoner will test Ducati's 2009 bike at Valencia today and tomorrow before undergoing surgery on his damaged scaphoid. He had postponed the operation to ensure he was able to participate in the test, and intends to be fit in time for the pre-season sessions next February.

"Luckily we're not going to miss out on too much testing and testing will start as normal next season," said Stoner.

"Hopefully we're going to time it right and hopefully my arm will be back up to strength by the time testing comes next year. I'm quite sure it will be.

"These next two days are the important ones for us to get an understanding of the new tyres and how the rules are going to work, and also our new bike. We've got a couple of big days ahead of us. We've got a lot of different things to try, and then straight after that we've got to go straight in for surgery.

"It's going to be a little bit difficult to train over the winter but we're going to do everything we can without this hand, and then by the time next year comes we should have started moving it and we should be ready to come out."