Injury-hit Casey Stoner hinted today he might not last the distance in Sunday's Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
The recently-deposed MotoGP world champion revealed he was worried about the nagging wrist problem worsening over the weekend.
The Ducati star, who handed over his title to Italian hero Valentino Rossi in last Sunday's Japanese GP, said he would not ride with the wrist strapped because it could hamper movement.
"I'm a little bit worried about this weekend to see how many laps we can do of the race before we start getting tired," Stoner said.
"But if we feel comfortable and the bike's working well then that should make things easier.
"We're going to have to work really hard this weekend just to try and set the bike up the best we can.
"I've opted to take the strapping off basically because it was just too much of a hindrance.
"I couldn't pick the bike up well enough and couldn't grip the handlebars when I was picking the bike up.
"It's a lot easier for me to ride in some ways without the strapping," he said.
"Pain-wise it's fine, it's just a weakness from changing direction.
"The races have been very hard lately and it's not the easiest time," Stoner said.
"We're going to give it 100 per cent as we always do and see what happens."
Stoner said he would need an operation before the end of the year or his career could be over.
"It's disappointing that after five years of getting an operation it starts to flare up now but in some ways we're lucky it did show us what the real problem was and that we weren't just ignoring it and finding a bigger problem later on."
Stoner said it was likely he would be fit for the start of the 2009 season although there was a chance he could miss some pre-season testing.
"It's better for us to get it fixed at the end of this season -- it's going to take three months to come good but we should have that amount of time before testing starts again next year and then we should be a little bit more competitive."
Stoner said he hoped to hit back strongly with the 2009 Ducati -- which he rode in a recent test -- in a bid to regain his world title.
"The '09 bike chassis seems a lot better, the engine was just a prototype then and they said it was going to be a lot better by the time we come around next year.," he said.
"We were very happy with the lap times, everything felt really nice and they seem to have improved in the areas I was asking for.
"I'll reserve judgement until we get to Valencia (the season-ending race in Spain) when we can hopefully test it after the race and see how things have progressed from there but I'm looking forward to next year, for sure," Stoner said.
Rossi, who collected his sixth MotoGP title at Motegi on Sunday, says he remains highly motivated for the closing three races in Australia, Malaysia and Valencia.
"Now it is important to concentrate and focus because we have three races and I want to close my season with three good results," Rossi said.
"This year we had a lot of hard racing, a lot of tough battles so I hope to stay (competitive) for the last three races.
"It is a good track for me. Malaysia is okay and last year in Valencia it was a disaster so every time there will be lots of motivation to try to get the best result."
