Earlier this week, Stoner – the 2007 and 2011 MotoGP world champion – told the Gypsy Tales podcast that he battled with anxiety through his racing career, which was only recently officially diagnosed.
Stoner revealed that for much of his racing career, the more successful he was during a weekend, “the more I wanted to die”, as his anxiety badly affected him.
The Australian retired at the end of 2012 aged just 27 having only raced in the premier class for seven years.
Dovizioso – who was team-mates with Stoner at Honda in 2011 – says he was “not too surprised” to hear of Stoner’s plight, as it is something that has affected many a racer.
“Yeah, what every rider feels nobody knows, and every rider lives the race in a completely different way – for many reasons,” RNF Racing rider Dovizioso said in Malaysia on Friday.
“I’m not too surprised because if you follow a lot of stories of the best sportsmen in the world, a lot of them have problems in a different…
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