Turkish GP - Free Practice
GREAT DAY FOR THE DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM IN TURKEY
 Ducati
Marlboro Team men Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi made a
brilliant start to the Turkish Grand Prix today, ending the
first day of practice fastest and second fastest. Their pace
proves the strengths of the Desmosedici GP7 and shows that
Bridgestone has made huge strides forward since last year's
race at Istanbul Park.
This morning's opening session was run in cool, damp conditions,
but the weather improved substantially for this afternoon's
outing, when track temperature reached 35 degrees.
CASEY STONER, fastest, 1m 54.200s
"That was really good, the last run was my first time
on new tyres since I first went out this morning. We tried
a different rear, so we've only used two rears from our selection
and we've got another couple to try tomorrow. It would be
nice if we can find an even better one. Everything seems pretty
comfortable, pretty good at the moment. We haven't changed
the settings too much from Jerez, so obviously the team did
the right things for this circuit. For sure we need to improve
the bike before we get to the race but track conditions are
going to change a lot, so we don't know how our current settings
will work by the time the race comes around. As always, we're
trying to make the bike as perfect as possible, we need it
to turn a bit better, with a little more traction and a little
less pumping. Once we've got those things we should have quite
a good package. I've had some pretty good results in the past
here so it would be nice if we can continue that. It's not
my favourite track, it's very technical and it's difficult
for set-up but we seem to be doing the right job at the moment.
Also, it's good to see Loris back on form, you can see it
in his eyes. It's nice that both of us are running up front."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, 2nd fastest, 1m 54.979s
"I'm very satisfied. We've worked really well on bike
set-up so I'm enjoying riding again and that's good. We made
some adjustments for more front-end feeling and I felt better
with every lap, so we will continue working in this direction
and I think I can improve even more. The first two races were
quite demanding for me but now I'm back up front and that's
important. Bridgestone are doing a great job with the tyres.
The front we are using here is a hard tyre and a bit difficult
on the first lap, but after that it works really well. The
rear is also hard but it's quite consistent over a lot of
laps and that's encouraging. This morning the track conditions
were really difficult but bit by bit they improved. It's a
bit like Qatar, the times will drop further tomorrow and many
riders will be faster. I feel in great shape, I look forward
tomorrow and Sunday's race."
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