Czech test concludes with Stoner on top again

Attempting to rebuild his confidence onboard his Desmosedici GP8 following his costly crash at Brno on Sunday, Casey Stoner again demonstrated the competitiveness of his current Ducati Marlboro package with a 1´55.855s lap of the Czech circuit on Tuesday.

The time was by far the quickest of any undertaken by the eleven riders in attendance testing their 800cc prototypes and kept Stoner ahead of Czech Republic race-winner, and second fastest Tuesday participant, Valentino Rossi, by a margin of 0.758s.

Stoner achieved a remarkable time of 1´55.904s on race tyres - faster than Rossi´s two-year old pole record – on just his seventeenth lap of the day, before shaving that time down on qualifying tyres just before 4pm as he wrapped things up early.

Stoner had been tyre testing in an effort to reduce the angle of lean that he carries in corners and keep the bike more upright, allowing better entry and exit speeds – and Ducati believe they have found a way of doing this. The high lean angle is what Stoner blames for his Sunday crash so he will be happy to have made progress on the issue.

Rossi, meanwhile, also continued with a programme of Bridgestone tyre testing, as well as working on electronics and general set-up. He tried some qualifying tyres but his best time of the day, a lap of 1´56.613, was set on a race tyre.

Rizla Suzuki were satisfied by the durability of the new Bridgestone front tyres on offer as their riders Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen concluded the day third and fourth respectively.

Shinya Nakano was fifth as he tested tyres, new front disk brake compounds for Nissin and the generic set-up of his recently received factory-spec RC212V.

Kawasaki are positive about their evolving Ninja ZX-RR but the test workload was left to Anthony West and Olivier Jacque after John Hopkins was forced to sit out proceedings due to torn rib cartilage sustained in one of his comeback weekend crashes.

Brno - Tuesday test lap times

1. C STONER, Ducati Marlboro Team - 1´55.855
2. V ROSSI, Fiat Yamaha Team - 1´56.613
3. L CAPIROSSI, Rizla Suzuki MotoGP - 1´57.132
4. C VERMEULEN, Rizla Suzuki MotoGP - 1´57.483
5. S NAKANO, San Carlo Honda Gresini - 1´57.559
6. J LORENZO, Fiat Yamaha Team - 1´57.600
7. N CANEPA, Ducati Test Team - 1´57.639
8. J TOSELAND, Tech 3 Yamaha - 1´58.007
9. O JACQUE, Kawasaki Racing Team - 1´58.483
10. M MELANDRI, Ducati Marlboro Team - 1´58.927
11. A WEST, Kawasaki Racing Team - 1´59.010