Qatar GP - Free Practice
STONER A CLOSE THIRD ON FIRST DAY OF THE 800S
 Ducati
Marlboro Team men Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi were third
and eighth quickest during the first two sessions at Losail
today, the first day of MotoGP's new 800cc era.
Stoner, making his GP debut for the team, was less than three
tenths off ‘provisional pole', pronouncing himself happy
with progress. Capirossi meanwhile worked on perfecting a
radical new chassis set-up with one of his Desmosedici GP7s.
Today also saw the implementation of MotoGP's new tyre regulations
that restrict each rider to 14 front slicks and 17 rear slicks
per weekend. The team has been preparing for the new rules
by working closely with Bridgestone during winter testing.
CASEY STONER, 3rd fastest, 1m 56.745s
"We found some reasonably good tyres and straight away
we were quicker than in testing a few weeks back, plus the
track condition is good, so I'm really happy. This morning
and this afternoon I only had one set of tyres each session,
so I'm quite happy with tyre life and the way they've performed.
This afternoon we ran into a few little problems with the
bike but other than that everything is going quite well. We
had to work at getting some traction with the last tyre I
used, the front end wasn't turning as well as we'd like it
to, so we improved that a little bit towards the end. We've
still got a fair bit to go through tomorrow, though we've
pretty much narrowed rear choice down to two tyres. The new
tyre rules aren't a drama - during testing we worked with
that system to get accustomed to it, though we pretty much
know what tyres to use here and Jerez because we've tested
at both tracks recently, so we've been able to minimise the
selection."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, 8th fastest, 1m 57.247s
"We started here with two different chassis set-ups,
with very different settings in the rear end. I first tried
one of these solutions at Jerez and I liked it very much,
so I am continuing in this direction, though after just two
hours of practice it's not yet perfect for this track. We
use a very hard front here, a specific tyre for this circuit
only, and I don't yet feel 100 per cent confident in the tyre,
but Casey is using the same front and he's done a lot of laps
with it and done some very fast times, so that gives me confidence.
The new tyre rules do change the strategy of practice. You
are restricted to how many tyres you can use, so sometimes
you have to do a lot of laps on a tyre even if you don't feel
totally happy with it. But it's the same for everyone and
it's okay. The bike is working very well in race trim, racing
is always different from practicing, so I'm feeling positive
about the race."
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