Stoner conducted a 45-minute press conference in Estoril and apologised for his absence and talked about the break he had to recover from his health issues.

Stoner said:
“I’ve been struggling in the last races as everybody knew and I went back to Australia after (the British GP at) Donington to get a better understanding of what was going on,”

“I was planning to come back for (the Czech race at) Brno but we didn’t find any solutions in such a short space of time and I had recommendations from the doctors, my wife and my father saying that’s enough, I need to take a bit of time out.

“I was never going to be away for more than three races and for me it was a really tough decision. I wasn’t forced into it but it was highly recommended by everyone.

“During this period we did everything we could to solve the problems. We’re just going to see this weekend how I perform.”

“It was disappointing for my whole team that I wasn’t able to comeback in Brno and I apologised for that to them from the beginning,”

“I apologised to them for every race I wasn’t competitive since Catalunya because before each race we knew it was going to be very difficult to win.

“My first apology is to my team and hopefully we can comeback in a positive frame of mind and hopefully be competitive again.

“I’ve really missed it. It was better for me to have the time off and have more tests and see more doctors to understand if we can fix this problem,” Stoner said.

“It has been the toughest decision I’ve had to take in my whole life and it took days to make it.

“I feel like I missed out on so much but at the same time if it helps me then it was the right decision.”

Stoner dismissed rumours which began almost immediately after his return to Australia, that he had had enough of the sport or there had been problems between him and the team.

“We were in contact all of the time with Ducati giving them updates after each appointment I had,” he said.

“I had to sort this out on my own and if I wasn’t racing then what reason was there for me to be in contact with the media and everybody?

“I was always going to comeback. But I’ve no problems with Ducati whatsoever and there have been all kinds of rumours.”

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