GREAT DAY FOR THE DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM IN TURKEY
Ducati Marlboro Team men Casey Stoner and Loris
Capirossi made a brilliant start to the Turkish Grand Prix today,
ending the first day of practice fastest and second fastest. Their pace
proves the strengths of the Desmosedici GP7 and shows that Bridgestone
has made huge strides forward since last year's race at Istanbul Park.
This morning's opening session was run in cool, damp
conditions, but the weather improved substantially for this afternoon's
outing, when track temperature reached 35 degrees.
CASEY STONER, fastest, 1m 54.200s
"That was really good, the last run was my first
time on new tyres since I first went out this morning. We tried a
different rear, so we've only used two rears from our selection and
we've got another couple to try tomorrow. It would be nice if we can
find an even better one. Everything seems pretty comfortable, pretty
good at the moment. We haven't changed the settings too much from
Jerez, so obviously the team did the right things for this circuit. For
sure we need to improve the bike before we get to the race but track
conditions are going to change a lot, so we don't know how our current
settings will work by the time the race comes around. As always, we're
trying to make the bike as perfect as possible, we need it to turn a
bit better, with a little more traction and a little less pumping. Once
we've got those things we should have quite a good package. I've had
some pretty good results in the past here so it would be nice if we can
continue that. It's not my favourite track, it's very technical and
it's difficult for set-up but we seem to be doing the right job at the
moment. Also, it's good to see Loris back on form, you can see it in
his eyes. It's nice that both of us are running up front."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, 2nd fastest, 1m 54.979s
"I'm very satisfied. We've worked really well on
bike set-up so I'm enjoying riding again and that's good. We made some
adjustments for more front-end feeling and I felt better with every
lap, so we will continue working in this direction and I think I can
improve even more. The first two races were quite demanding for me but
now I'm back up front and that's important. Bridgestone are doing a
great job with the tyres. The front we are using here is a hard tyre
and a bit difficult on the first lap, but after that it works really
well. The rear is also hard but it's quite consistent over a lot of
laps and that's encouraging. This morning the track conditions were
really difficult but bit by bit they improved. It's a bit like Qatar,
the times will drop further tomorrow and many riders will be faster. I
feel in great shape, I look forward tomorrow and Sunday's race."
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