Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner has revealed it took an extreme setting to make the Ducati Desmosedici good enough to win MotoGP races last year but the inreasingly-cryptic Aussie qualifed it by adding he could still get podiums when it wasn't.

Stoner was speaking just after Valentino Rossi confirmed he would be using the new aluminium chassis this weekend following a successful test at Mugello last week. The 2007 champion says he is still amazed Ducati can't make the bike work despite all the changes that have been made.

'They've gone through that many changes this year it's not funny. I think something should have worked already this year with the different parts they have thrown at it - changing complete chassis, complete bike, you name it, they've done it. We're not even doing that with Honda and we have got the resources to do it," said Stoner, speaking to bikesportnews.com this evening.

"You can throw a load of parts at it but sometimes it's better to find out what each part does first and get to grips with it. That's what we did last year. It took us a long time, too long to be honest, but it took a fairly extreme setting to get the bike to work and make it happy for us. In the mean time we were still competitive enough to win races and get podiums."