Chinese GP: Ducati Marlboro Team Friday notes

DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM CLOSE TO THE FRONT AT SHANGHAI

Ducati Marlboro Team riders Loris Capirossi and Casey Stoner made a steady start to this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, ending the first day of practice in fifth and eighth positions.

The first day of practice was intensely competitive, with just one second covering the fastest 15 riders, even though Shanghai is MotoGP's longest lap at more than two minutes. Capirossi, who scored his first podium of the year in Turkey two weeks ago, found good settings for his Desmosedici GP7 this afternoon to put him just 0.161 seconds off ‘provisional pole'. World Championship leader Stoner led this morning's session and did a long run in the mid-2m 01s this afternoon, his best lap only 0.256 seconds off pole

LORIS CAPIROSSI, 5th fastest, 2m 01.365s

"We are all really, really close, it's a bit like a 125 session! This morning I didn't feel so good, we had a few problems but we were able to work very well on set-up, so a big thank you to my team for that. We chose a configuration with quite a lot of weight on the front end and I feel comfortable, so I can ride quite well. I've still got a few problems with the bumps here, so we are working on that to get the best out of the bike with the power delivery I prefer. We still have a few ideas to test tomorrow, but if it does rain and we can't try them out, we aren't so bad on race set-up, so I'm pretty confident for Sunday, which should be sunny, according to the forecast. The Bridgestone tyres are fine, the front is really good and the rear is pretty good too."

CASEY STONER, 8th fastest, 2m 01.460s

"This morning we started with a set-up similar to Turkey and we didn't make any big changes during the day. We worked in order to better the settings step by step. So far we are not so bad, and tomorrow we have to focus on making the bike turn better and we need to find some more rear grip. In the afternoon we did a positive long run and we aren't worried about tyres, we are pretty comfortable from that point of view. It looks as if a lot of riders are able to go pretty fast out there, and we need to be able to stay amongst them. Generally, we're going not so bad, we are working to improve and we hope to make good progress tomorrow."

-credit: ducati