Round 9 - Dutch TT - Free Practice
STONER INSIDE DUTCH TT POLE RECORD, TOUGH DAY FOR
MELANDRI
Casey Stoner made the most of the warm sunshine that welcomed
the MotoGP riders to Assen today, clocking the fastest time
of both opening free practice sessions for the Dutch TT. The
Australian lapped in low 1'36s throughout the afternoon, dipping
inside the current pole position record for the current track
layout, set by John Hopkins in 2006 (1'36.441). Marco Melandri
suffered very different fortunes and was unable to improve
his lap time from the morning to the afternoon.
CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) 1st: 1'36.078
"We're very happy with the fact we've come to another
circuit and the new set up is working as well as it did at
Catalunya and Donington. There don't seem to be any bad points
to it and it is helping me ride like I want to again. I'm
able to use harder compound tyres again and I'm just getting
a better feel for the whole bike in general, without it bucking
and weaving everywhere. We had a couple of moments today where
it thought about trying to spit me but nothing to worry about.
If you watch the race last year you can see the bike moving
around a lot and we were struggling, whereas if you saw me
ride today you can see what a huge step forward we've taken.
In fact, maybe with the exception of Donington, this is probably
the first time since Qatar where I can say that this bike
is better than last year's. Today we've gone faster than the
pole record on a race tyre so we're delighted with how everything
is coming together."
MARCO MELANDRI (Ducati Marlboro Team) 18th: 1'39.020
"At the moment it is not looking good. This afternoon
we tried to load the front up a little more to improve the
steering and feeling in the fast corners but we lost a bit
of grip on the rear and in the end the bike was harder to
ride. We took a step backwards with the setting at the end
and I did two runs where I rediscovered the feeling I had
this morning. However, at the moment we're still a long way
off finding the solution to our problems."
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