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Casey Stoner laid down an early marker in the
opening free practice session for the Grand Prix of Qatar, dominating the time
sheets throughout. His team-mate Marco Melandri picked up where he left off in
the test here, using the first hour to immediately get onto the same pace that
he'd set just over a week ago.
Slightly warmer temperatures compared to
that test and the sand that has blown onto the circuit since then made for a
slippery surface, which made life difficult for the Ducati Marlboro pair, who
are both confident of making major improvements.
CASEY STONER - fastest
in FP1: 1'55.442
"Finally the first race is here and it feels
good to get out there and see what everybody is really capable of. I've been
looking forward to today for a while because to be honest I've got a bit sick of
testing. Anyway, it was good to get going - the bike itself felt good from the
start but for some reason the overall feeling wasn't as good as it was at the
test and I'd put that down to the slightly different track conditions. There
wasn't as much grip and lot of riders were crashing today, much more than at the
same time during the test, so it seems everybody is struggling with the same
problem. The first session has basically just helped us to decide which way to
go with the setting so we'll tune both bikes in to the same set-up for the
second session and from there we'll be able to really make some progress with
the tyres and address the grip issue."
MARCO MELANDRI - 15th fastest in FP1: 1.57.091
"I'm satisfied with how things have gone in this first
session because I've been able to get on my best pace from the test, but with
using old tyres. We've started out with the best setting we found over two days
here last week, with just a few small adjustments, and the bike felt good
straight away. I think we're working on the right lines with this bike and we
still have a lot of room for more improvement. The track was really slippery for
the first few laps, much more than when we were here for the test, but then it
started to improve. The temperature isn't as harsh as a week ago so we're hoping
we can stay at this level."
from Ducati MotoGP press
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