Reigning MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner has voiced concerns he may struggle at this weekend's Assen round as the track requires plenty of rear edge grip which has already been identified as a weak point of the RC213V.

The forthright Aussie, who injured his neck in a crash at the Dutch track last year, is hoping for polar opposite in terms of weather conditions to auld enemy Valentino Rossi who seems to be doing a rain dance this weekend - and for the rest of 2012.

"We've had some great results in Assen, but also some pretty bad ones, so hopefully we can go there this weekend, be competitive and avoid any injury like last year when I hurt my neck, which followed us for the season and still causes me problems now. You spend a lot of the time on the edge of the tyre in Assen and unfortunately on our bike at the moment this is a weak point," said Stoner.

"We will need to work on Thursday and Friday to improve before we can consider ourselves competitive there. I really hope the weather is good for us, as we need as much track time as possible to work on various issues on the bike. With three races back to back, it's important to get some good results at Assen, Sachsenring and Mugello, so we need to remain focused.”