Stoner feeling more confident than on previous Mugello visits

Hoping for a good result this weekend at round five to keep his title charge in full swing - and to give the thousands of Ducati fans at Mugello something to cheer about - 2007 MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner was in an upbeat mood at the end of the first day’s action.

In superb conditions at the home track of his Ducati employers Stoner had some testing to undertake in the first free practice session of the Gran Premio d’Italia Alice, but he still found time to put in a best effort of 1’50.144, placing him third on the timesheet.

Trying out some swing arm variations on the Desmosedici GP9, comparing the aluminium version with the carbon version, Stoner was pleased with the work he put in and the lap time he managed to produce.

“We’ve started out really well, much better than we have in the past here at Mugello. It normally takes us a lot longer to get up to a reasonable pace. Unfortunately though I had a lot of things to test today so we weren’t able to do the consecutive laps we wanted to, to bring the times down, but in general with what we tested we had some very positive feelings.”

Striving to break Ducati’s Mugello victory duck this weekend in front of the passionate Ducatisti crowd, who will gather on the Correntaio corner throughout the weekend, Stoner said of his chances, “I think for this weekend we are feeling, not overly confident, but much more confident than we have in the past here. I’m really looking forward to it all, everything feels good and we have a few more things to try tomorrow, then hopefully we can keep going in the right direction.”