Perhaps no one took more delight in Ducati's pain last season than Casey Stoner.

Stoner won 10 races and his second World Championship in 2011 during his maiden season with Repsol Honda, while Ducati - his employer from 2007-10 - went winless with its high-profile signing Valentino Rossi. Stoner won three races in 2010 on the Ducati GP10, a carbon-fiber bike from which the winless GP11 was developed.

So when Stoner recently expressed his desire for Ducati to be more competitive this season, one wonders whether it was sincere sentiment or that famous, barbed-wire Aussie sarcasm at work. The incident immediately comes to mind of Stoner feigning concern about Rossi's injured shoulder and then telling The Doctor that his ambition outweighed his talent when Rossi tried to apologize for dive-bombing Stoner out of the Spanish Grand Prix last spring.

Stoner also followed his recent good wishes for Ducati with a double-whammy against the Boys from Bologna and Rossi, saying he doubts either will be competitive in 2012.

"They are saying that they completely revamped 90 percent of the bike, but they did that in the middle of last year," Stoner said. "They changed the bike back to front and top to bottom, and nothing much changed.

"Jorge was first in 2010 and second in 2011; he will always be there fighting."