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Stoner keeps 'new set-up' on top

After the misery of crashing out of the race lead in Sunday's Czech Republic Grand Prix, Casey Stoner was nonetheless able to leave Brno 'really happy' after setting a sensational pace during two days of post-race testing.

On another hot and sunny day, Ducati's reigning world champion lapped until 4pm and completed 40 laps in the low 1min 56secs range - eventually clocking a 1min 55.904secs on a new race tyre.

The Australian also tested a new qualifying tyre, posting the best time of the day with a 1min 55.855secs, more than a second inside his own pole position record and 0.755secs ahead of nearest rival Valentino Rossi.

"I'm really happy with how these two days have gone," declared Stoner. "The changes we made to the setting yesterday have proven to be very positive today too. They allowed me to repeat my time from yesterday on a new experimental tyre and on the same tyre I used on Sunday, and then take another couple of tenths off on a new tyre again.

"Bridgestone are doing a great job but more than anything I'm pleased with this new set-up, which has improved all areas of bike performance and will be useful for the next race," he underlined.

"I tried two new qualifiers as well but to be honest I wasn't pushing them that hard because at the moment I'm not concerned by our qualifying performances - I just want to concentrate on how to improve in the races and try to do the best possible job from now to the end of the championship," concluded the triple 2008 race winner.

Rossi, who won Sunday's race to build a 50 point title lead, also tried some Bridgestone qualifying tyres on Tuesday, but set his best time of the day on race tyres. The Italian finished 0.519secs clear of Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi, who was third in the grand prix.

Capirossi's team-mate Chris Vermeulen was 0.351secs slower in fourth, with Honda Gresini's Shinya Nakano a fraction slower on his newly acquired factory Honda. Nakano was the only factory RC212V rider on track on Tuesday, with the Repsol Honda Team abandoning the test early after Dani Pedrosa felt no improvement in tyre performance during eleven Monday laps.

Race winning MotoGP rookie Jorge Lorenzo was the leading Michelin rider on Tuesday, claiming sixth place out of the reduced eleven-rider field. Although the Spaniard improved on his best lap time from Sunday's race by one second, the Fiat Yamaha rider was still 1.745secs behind Stoner.

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About the lean angle issue, maybe the Ducati team are trying to make their bike work a bit more like the old-style 990's narrower turning arcs, later braking, earlier throttle opening and less corner speed. The lower corner speed doesn't mean less lean angle because the arc is narrower (obliged by the later braking) but it means the bike spends less time at full lean. You need to set-up the bike differently in order to go fast that way, so motogp.com might mean this.
Posted by Jack Mordino (442 days ago)
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