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Casey Stoner set the fastest lap on the opening
day of the Czech Republic Grand Prix despite suffering the effects of an
illness, which has left him weak and unable to ride to the maximum of his
ability. The Australian still managed to lap a second inside circuit record pace
this afternoon under cloudy skies, which eventually gave way to heavy rain
shortly after the end of the second MotoGP free practice.
Marco
Melandri made a promising start this morning but dropped down the time sheets
this afternoon, despite improving his best lap time. The Italian's target
tomorrow is to improve his feeling with the bike, particularly with the rear
end.
CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team)
1st - 1'57.231
"Unfortunately I've not been feeling well for a few
days and I felt very weak today - I even felt sapped of energy just putting my
gloves on. I can deal with a bit of tiredness but this afternoon I could only
ride a handful of laps before I started to feel cramps in my stomach. That
doesn't help my crew because I've not been able to put many consecutive laps
together and this morning wasn't too good for us, we struggled to find the right
set-up for this new surface. To look at you'd think it would be smooth on the
tyres but it's actually quite aggressive, particularly on the front. This
afternoon we went with a harder compound front tyre - similar to what we used at
Laguna and Sachsenring, which is about the hardest we've got - and we had to
work on the geometry to get the most effective load on the front tyre. The guys
improved the bike every time I came in so it was frustrating not to be able to
put it all together with a long run. We still have a lot of work to do so
hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow and the weather holds out for us."
MARCO MELANDRI (Ducati
Marlboro Team) 15th - 1'59.943
"We started out well this morning
and did some decent lap times but in the afternoon we didn't manage to make
progress with the set-up and as the other riders improved we lost more and more
ground. The bike is moving around a lot, especially on the rear, so that's an
area we have to work on tomorrow - weather permitting. The new surface has
improved the track overall although there are still a few bumps here and there."
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