Australia's MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner has launched a stinging attack on Valentino Rossi after the Italian icon's move back to Yamaha.
Rossi will rejoin Yamaha after a failed campaign with Ducati, on which Stoner won his first world title before switching to Honda.
Stoner has accused Rossi of failing to ride the bike to its limits and castigated the multiple world champion and his Australian crew chief, Jeremy Burgess, for boasting they could produce a Ducati on which "any rider could win".
"They ate their words from day one," Stoner said yesterday. "Jerry saying it would take him 80 seconds to fix that bike and that it was a simple issue and now they have had almost two years and not made any inroads.
"Valentino obviously doesn't want to push limits and ride a bike that is not perfect, he has admitted that.
