Australian GP: Pramac d'Antin Friday notes

GOOD START FOR THE PRAMAC-DANTIN TEAM AT THE GRAND PRIX OF AUSTRALIA. The first day of Free Practices in Phillip Island saw the weather once again playing a major role in the day's proceedings, with bright sunshine alternating with cold rain ...

GOOD START FOR THE PRAMAC-DANTIN TEAM AT THE GRAND PRIX OF AUSTRALIA.

The first day of Free Practices in Phillip Island saw the weather once again playing a major role in the day's proceedings, with bright sunshine alternating with cold rain during both morning and afternoon sessions, and forcing the riders to constantly enter the boxes. The fastest rider of the day was recently crowned World Champion, Casey Stoner, aboard his Ducati GP7, while for the Pramac-Dantin Ducati Team, things also started in a good way, with Alex Barros finishing in sixth position, and Chaz Davies in thirteenth. Tomorrow at 1:50PM (local time), the Qualifying Session will take place to determine the grid positions for the race on Sunday.

Alex Barros (15 laps. 1'32,16). "Today was a difficult one. Because of the meteorological conditions, I wasn't able to ride many laps in the dry during the morning session, and also in the afternoon I wasn't able to get in many dry laps, because we ran into a few problems and the track conditions were changing so rapidly. During the last six minutes of the Free Practice, we were very productive, and I took sixth position and had a good race pace going. On my last lap, I was going really well, but I went straight in a braking area otherwise I think I could have improved my time even more, if not for that mistake. For tomorrow, I hope to improve, and I especially hope that the wind dies down, because it made things so difficult today".

Chaz Davies (12 laps. 1'33,91). "The first session I started off by taking it easy because the track conditions were tricky and I wanted to take things step by step. As the day went on we introduced different modifications to the bike, and in the afternoon I was able to get a better feeling with the Ducati. At the end of the afternoon session I had a harmless crash that I think was caused by some oil on the track, or something similar, because 10 seconds later Stoner crashed in the same place, in the same way, and he made the same comments. Tomorrow, I hope to improve my laptimes and get a good spot on the grid to start from." Official Times.