Australian testing session - day 1
 PERFECT
START TO PHILLIP ISLAND TEST FOR STONER AND MELANDRI
Bright sunshine and 25 degrees celsius temperatures provided
perfect conditions for Casey Stoner and Marco Melandri as
they took to the Phillip Island circuit for the first of three
days of testing alongside the majority of MotoGP teams in
Australia.
It proved to be a positive day for both Ducati Marlboro Team
riders, who recorded impressive lap times on a race setting.
Stoner racked up 29 laps in 1'30 whilst experimenting with
set-up and tyres, giving highly encouraging feedback on the
new Bridgestone rubber. The World Champion is also continuing
to regain strength in the shoulder he injured at Jerez towards
the end of November, so much so that today he was able to
complete a total of 73 laps.
Marco Melandri was also satisfied after completing just shy
of 100 laps, making good progress with the base setting of
his GP8 in both the cycle part and engine. He did not try
the Japanese tyre manufacturer's latest offerings today but
will start to do so tomorrow.
Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro Team), best time: 1'30.178
(73 laps)
"Everything went really well today, the feeling with
the bike was perfect almost straight away. The new Bridgestones,
which had already given us positive feedback at Sepang, also
worked perfectly here at Phillip Island - one of them in particular
improves the bike a lot in the exit of the corners, especially
in the final section of the track. We've also taken a step
forward with some small changes to the front, which have made
the bike more stable and improved grip to the point where
my best time came without pushing, on a tyre that already
had 17 laps on it. I'm also really happy with the latest specs
of the engine and the way it is responding under acceleration
coming out of the corners. The weather was basically perfect
all day apart from when the wind picked up a little in the
afternoon but the smaller fairing, which we used for the race
here in October, meant that it wasn't a problem. Towards the
end of the day my shoulder was a little sore because this
is such a physical track, with a lot of fast corners, but
it is still better than it was in Malaysia."
Marco Melandri (Ducati Marlboro Team), best time:
1'30.869 (99 laps)
"I'm really happy today because I finally feel as though
I'm riding the bike more or less as I should. We knew that
Phillip Island would be better for us and that's proved to
be the case. The feeling was good from the first lap, thanks
also to the things we learnt in the last test. At Sepang I
probably changed the balance of the bike too much, trying
to make it more similar to what I have ridden in the past,
whereas here we've just tried to find a good base set-up,
which has made it more manageable in the corners and less
nervous. I am happy even though we're still not at 100%. We've
actually got plans to try something new with the weight distribution
tomorrow and we want to continue working on the electronics
to try and improve the power delivery even more, then we can
start tyre testing. In any case we've made a great start here."
Phillip Island info
Circuit Record: Marco Melandri (Honda - 2005) 1'30.332
Best pole: Nicky Hayden (Honda - 2006) 1'29.020
Fastest Lap GP 2007: Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1'30.801
Pole 2007: Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1'29.201
Unofficial lap times 30/01/2008
1. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha) 1:29.566
2. Casey STONER (Ducati) 1:30.178
3. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda) 1:30.688
4. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda) 1:30.701
5. James TOSELAND (Yamaha) 1:30.864
6. Marco MELANDRI (Ducati) 1:30.869
7. Shinya NAKANO (Honda) 1:31.111
8. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda) 1:31.226
9. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki) 1:31.274
10. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki) 1:31.317
11. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda) 1:31.436
12. John HOPKINS: (Kawasaki) 31.623
13. Anthony WEST (Kawasaki) 1:31.786
14. Sylvain GUINTOLI (Ducati) 1:32.484
15. Toni ELIAS (Ducati) 1:32.573
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