Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner (Photo: HRC)

In expanding on his reasons for pulling the pin in the prime of his career Stoner noted his unhappiness with constant rule changes and the coverage of his 2009 illness break from Ducati.

"This championship and everything I've done to get here has been huge dream of mine, and then to realize a lot of things, whether it's people having no faith in you or people not believing in your talent or the changes that have happened to the championship," Stoner said.

"2009 was big eye-opener to m. Everyone still until this day says it was a mystery illness. The fact that no one understands that I have a lactose intolerance, which is really critical -- just takes all my energy and stops me from absorbing nutrients.

"No one listened to me on that.

"Many things over time have taken their toll. The direction I see the championship heading and the fact that in 2009 I realized what was important and that's family and happiness.

"Money isn't everything. I think that I am one of the few riders who can actually say they have retired when they have stopped enjoying it. My passion has slowly ebbed away from this championship."

New rules, which are aimed at dumbing down MotoGP from the spellbinding performance of today's 340 kph prototypes, has also had an impact.

MotoGP has become a two class championship, much to Stoner's disappointment, and he feels that riders like fast Frenchman Randy de Puniet should have a chance of having equipment that allows them to challenge for better than 12th place.

De Puniet is riding an Aprilia RSV4 in the production-based CRT class this season.

"There needs to be more high quality bikes out there so people like Randy can be running where he deserves to be and not so far behind 12th position," Stoner said. "This is a MotoGP championship, this is a prototype championship. In the beginning it started with standard machines and progressed to prototype machines. Now we are taking the opposite step and going backwards.

"It is not starting again from the beginning -- it is going backwards. It is not the championship I fell in love with.

"It is not the championship I always wanted to race in and except for my competitors around me they are the only ones who give respect to each other.

"Nobody else has enough respect for the people that do their jobs, work in the teams, and put this show on every week. It is not easy."