Malaysian GP: Ducati Team Friday notes

DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM'S STONER A CLOSE SECOND QUICKEST AT SEPANG, CAPIROSSI 13TH Ducati Marlboro Team riders Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi finished today's opening two Malaysian GP practice sessions second and 13th fastest. Changeable conditions ...

DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM'S STONER A CLOSE SECOND QUICKEST AT SEPANG, CAPIROSSI 13TH

Ducati Marlboro Team riders Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi finished today's opening two Malaysian GP practice sessions second and 13th fastest. Changeable conditions dominated the day with rain falling in the closing minutes of this morning's session and the track still damp as the afternoon outing got underway.

Both riders sensibly waited a few minutes before venturing out this afternoon, World Champion Stoner taking to the track 15 minutes into the session and taking just three laps to go fastest. He ended the hour second quickest, just 11 thousandths of a second off the best lap of the day, while Capirossi struggled with bike set-up and ended the day 13th.

CASEY STONER, 2nd fastest, 2m 02.928s

"I waited a little bit before I went out this afternoon because we wanted quality laps, not quantity - there's no point destroying a set of tyres when the track's not right. It seems like there's been a lot of races where we've had to contend with wet practices this year. Today was also quite difficult because the new track surface isn't so good, it's much bumpier and more slippery than in the past and there's a lot of dust and dirt on it, so we can't seem to find a lot of grip, though maybe it'll get better with some more laps. Anyway, we're pretty happy with the bike set-up, we've not changed so much since this morning, and we've almost done race distance on the tyres because this afternoon we used the same tyres, so things are looking good and we're quite happy with the day."

LORIS CAPIROSSI, 13th fastest, 2m 04.940s

"The new surface isn't very grippy in some areas and in others it's very bumpy. But the big thing for me today was that my bike was moving around a lot and we aren't sure why, we aren't sure whether it's coming from the engine set-up or the chassis set-up. Anyway, today is the first day so we've got some time to work out how to improve the bike, so long as we have some good dry track time tomorrow. This afternoon we didn't go out at the start the session because it was neither wet nor dry, so we wanted to save my tyres. We are looking forward to improving tomorrow."