Chinese GP - Free Practice
 POSITIVE
DAY FOR DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM IN CHINA
The Grand Prix of China kicked off today with Casey Stoner
back on the pace, the World Champion lapping second fastest
in the morning session and quickest in the afternoon to end
the day on top of the timesheets. Marco Melandri suffered
some technical problems during the morning session but recovered
to improve his feeling with the machine in the afternoon.
The setback meant the Italian was unable to complete the
entire programme that was planned for him today but he hopes
to make continued progress tomorrow. Stoner, meanwhile, is
relieved to have recovered his feeling with the front end
but says there is still work to do tomorrow.
CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) 2nd fastest (2'00.215)
"It's more comfortable for us here. The last two races
didn't go well in practice but I believe they could have still
been two decent results and for a variety of reasons they
turned into not so good ones. We couldn't seem to get things
right, no matter what we did or what we tried, but this weekend
we seem to be back in control again. Front feel is a lot better
here, I'm slowly getting my confidence back and I think we
can continue to do that over the rest of the weekend. We're
getting better and better with rear grip but we're still nowhere
near perfect. We struggled last year turning the bike in the
fast corners at some tracks and we're still working on it
now. We're going to make a couple of big changes to one of
the bikes tomorrow and hopefully that can improve the lap
time."
MARCO MELANDRI - (Ducati Marlboro Team) 14th fastest
(2'01.913)
"Unfortunately we lost a lot of time today because of
two important setbacks and that stopped me from getting through
all the work we had planned. This morning it was a problem
with the engine, which wasn't performing to its maximum potential
in certain areas of the track, and we only worked out what
the problem was at the end. In the afternoon we were working
on weight distribution when the bike stopped. It was a silly
little thing with the electronics but it broke my rhythm and
I didn't have time to test tyres. But even though we only
did a few, unproductive laps, we knows what works here and
I'm confident that we have the information to improve the
bike and the results compared to the last few races."
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