Honda apologise to Stoner for Suzuka crash

In his first competitive outing since he retired from world championship racing at the end of 2012, Stoner came off his factory Honda bike at the Japanese circuit on Sunday, fracturing his shoulder blade and breaking his tibia.

The 29-year-old, who won the MotoGP world title in 2007 and 2011, blamed a stuck throttle for the high speed crash and on Wednesday Honda confirmed a malfunction had been discovered in the cable leading to the valve.

"This kind of problem hasn't arisen before, however, Honda Racing Corporation will cease using this throttle specification and will design a new one to be used for endurance races," the company said in a statement.

"HRC would like to apologise to Casey Stoner and thank him for the effort he made in attending the Suzuka 8 Hour event."

(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Amlan Chakraborty)