Stoner buoyed by positive start

Casey Stoner’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix got off to a promising start on Friday as the Ducati man set the best time of the opening practice. A hot lap of 1’40.884 made the Australian the only sub-1’41” rider in the hour session, and placed him 0.225s ahead of closest rival Jorge Lorenzo.

Having not raced in last year’s Indy round due to illness Stoner spent the initial part of the hour guiding himself round the circuit and reacquainting himself with its layout.

"For the first two laps I didn't remember anything about the track from two years ago but after that it all came back pretty quickly!” said the 24 year-old. “This is quite a unique circuit because of the different types of surface and the amount of bumps out there so we had to improvise a little today because it's not easy to pick the right line.”

Stoner was riding his Desmosedici GP10 with the new front fork tested at Brno, and evaluated its impact.

“We made a good start but I'm sure everybody will work things out better tomorrow and close the gap,” he stated. “Having said that this is a good situation to be in on the first day and for the first time in a while we feel there is potential to improve. We tried the new front fork today that we tested in Brno and it felt good, although this is not the kind of circuit where you can really push so it's hard to say if it improved the package."

Stoner’s previous visit to Indianapolis was for the inaugural MotoGP race in 2008, for which he qualified on the front row and finished the race in fourth place.