Ducati 'stabbed Stoner in back'

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AT the start of the 2009 season I was the fittest I'd ever been. We had some teething problems with the new Ducati but we managed to get it moving okay.

We knew that this bike had real potential and we still hadn't got to the tracks where we usually excel at, so we were feeling confident that we stood a very strong chance of winning the championship back.

Then something started to go wrong that I couldn't explain.

The cover of Stoner's autobiography. Source: Supplied

After the race at Mugello I was a lot more tired than I had ever felt in a race. I was surprised because I had been training well, so I didn't really understand it and just shrugged it off as a one-off.

Then during warm-up on the morning of the next race in Barcelona I was worn out after just a few laps. I was so tired I went back to bed and slept for two hours.

That afternoon was when it really hit, exactly as everybody saw on the television. It didn't come on slowly, the fatigue hit me with a big bang after about five laps. One minute I was okay and then suddenly I had so little strength that I was just hanging on to the bike by the end of the race, so exhausted that I could barely get off it in parc ferme. I couldn't walk or talk, I just wanted to throw up and almost collapsed on the podium.

The moment the world found out about Stoner's illness. Source: Supplied

I had seen doctors about some tiredness back in Australia in 2006. They said I had chronic fatigue syndrome, which they put down to a combination of my diet and my busy schedule.

But this time it was far more serious and it seemed that no matter what I tried to do to make myself better I only got worse. I started having more recovery drinks made up of milk and whey powder and my condition continued to deteriorate even more rapidly.

I didn't suspect that what I was doing to help was causing even more problems.

We battled on but by the end of every race I was struggling just to stay upright. Nobody knew more than me that things weren't good but the tension started to build with Ducati as well.

I'd seen every doctor and specialist they had wanted me to see, in Europe and in the USA and I had every test imaginable. I felt like a pin cushion but they all came back saying it was in my head or that I had a hormone imbalance, which was nonsense. There were lots of theories but no diagnosis and nothing I tried made me feel better.

Ducati weren't happy and I could feel that but when they started making announcements about my condition without my consent, that really disappointed me.

We had won a title together, I had been equal top in the championship after Barcelona and I'd given everything I had for us to do that. Now I needed Ducati to stand by me but I felt like they were giving up on me instead. They started talking to me about my training, telling me what I needed to do to get my fitness levels back up, but none of them had any idea what I was going through.

A tyre gamble at Donington drove a further wedge between Stoner and Ducati. Source: AFP

The news of me heading back to Australia [for more tests and rest, skipping the Brno, Indianapolis and Misano races] didn't go down well and I got an email from Claudio Domenicali, who was CEO of Ducati Corse, basically saying, 'I hope you don't expect to get paid for this.'

It was extremely disappointing not to have the support of my employers during one of the most difficult times of my life. But I knew that if I didn't get to the root of my problem then I was facing the end of my career, it was as simple as that.

I spent a week having tests and scans. Two of the tests I had to do, for lactose and gluten intolerance, were two- or three-week processes that required experimenting with being on and off them. I had to go on a strict elimination diet to try and pinpoint any problems that could be food related.

I wasn't aware of it at the time but back in Europe I was getting even more stick, some of it from people who are supposed to know what they are talking about. I got ripped into by the press, by my peers and by former riders.

Everybody had their own opinions. It gave me a better perspective of what racing meant to me and what people really thought of me, who I could trust.

There were certainly people I couldn't trust at Ducati.

Wife Adriana helped Stoner through the tests to determine the cause of his illness. Source: AFP

While I was away they offered Jorge Lorenzo a contract for double the money I was on to come in and replace me. They'd told me when we signed a contract for 2009 and 2010 that they didn't have any more money for me, didn't have money for development but now suddenly they could afford to shell out like that for another rider? Considering what we had achieved together, I couldn't believe it. I felt I had been stabbed in the back by the people I trusted and who were supposed to trust me.

After two weeks up in Darwin I went back on lactose and that night I was as sick as a dog. I couldn't get out of bed, I lost my voice and was stuck in bed for days not feeling well enough to do much. The doctor had told me to look out for a reaction but I was expecting something far less severe so I genuinely didn't put two and two together straight away.

By the time we headed back to Europe I was still feeling lethargic and I had started to lose faith that I was ever going to get to the bottom of it and feel well again. We arrived a week before the race in Portugal and I said to Adriana, 'You know, because I got so sick after Darwin I never actually finished off the lactose test properly.' We decided to try it again, just to be sure.

As the week went on and lactose started to leave my system I started to feel better. Because I hadn't done anything to exert myself that week I wasn't sure if it was working or not.

It wasn't until the Friday, when I got back on the bike that I realised there was a massive difference. On the Sunday morning I was fastest in the warm-up but still I couldn't be sure of my exact condition until we had gone the full race distance.

I kept hammering the lap times, all the while I was expecting to die halfway through the race but it never came.

Stoner celebrates on the podium at Estoril. Source: Supplied

I kept hammering the whole race and brought it home in second place. That was a fantastic feeling, indescribable really. From thinking that my career could be over for good I now had reason to believe that I could come back stronger and better than ever.

Stoner romped to his third-straight win at Phillip Island. Source: News Limited

Before going back to Australia for the next race at Phillip Island we decided to try lactose again, just to confirm that it definitely was the source of the problem. Within the next day or two I started losing my usual energy. In a way, this made us happy because I could finally confirm what the problem was.

After that it was like a whole new world. For ten years it had seemed to me that a lot of food tasted the same and I could go a whole day without eating and not be hungry. Once I knew what the problem was and knew what to do everything started to smell and taste good.

The most important thing was that we had salvaged my career and I could now look forward to trying to win the championship in 2010.

Stoner toyed with Rossi before running away with the win on home soil. Source: News Limited

One thing I was clear about, though, was that I wanted to win it for myself and for my team, but not for the company. After the way they'd behaved I had pretty much decided that I was through with Ducati and even though they put a new contract in front of me, for 2011 and 2012, it was going to take a much grander gesture to make me stay.

I told them I wanted them to show me what I meant to them. 'What do you mean?' they said. 'That's up to you,' I told them. I gave them months to do it and nothing happened.

In the end I had to spell it out. I said, 'Rip up my current contract and show me what I am worth to you.' They wouldn't do it, and that told me all I needed to know. Up until then there was a chance that I'd stay but that effectively made my decision easy.

I decided to follow the one dream I had left in racing and go where I had always wanted to go.

I signed a contract for the 2011 season with Honda in the second round of the 2010 season at Jerez.

An edited extract from Casey Stoner's autobiography, PUSHING THE LIMITS published by Hachette Australia. On sale now.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY

Stoner's new toy for 2011: Honda's RC211V. Source: Supplied

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