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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."
From Ducati Marlboro
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