Casey Stoner not worried by Sepang heat

Casey Stoner is confident he will be able to cope with the punishing heat and humidity at this weekend’s Malaysia GP in Sepang.

This weekend’s penultimate round of the 2009 MotoGP campaign will provide Stoner with a gruelling physical examination, less than a month after he returned from a fatigue issues.

Temperatures can easily nudge 40 degrees at Sepang and with high humidity; the physical demands are enormous on riders. But Stoner is confident his recovering body will be able to cope with the special challenge thrown up by racing in Malaysia. Since returning to action from illness, Stoner was second in Estoril and he was back to his brilliant best in Phillip Island last weekend, claiming a third successive home MotoGP victory.

Both races were staged in much less physically challenging conditions, but 24-year-old Stoner said: “In the past I used to like racing in the heat but last year in Malaysia I was racing with a wrist injury and I’ve had the physical problems everybody knows about so I suppose it’s a combination of factors that I have suffered with in recent hot races.

“But at Phillip Island things went so well from a physical point of view that I feel reasonably confident. It will definitely be a tough race as being fast and consistent in those conditions is always difficult regardless.

“It is not easy to find the perfect set-up here but that’s always been the case and with every day that passes I feel stronger and more confident that I can be competitive in both of the two races that remain.

“The track has become a little… boring for me I suppose you could say – just because we have done so many laps here in testing – but the races are usually fun and I like the place. It has a kind of holiday feel to it and it puts you in a good mood.”