Casey Stoner confirmed his initial positive impression of the new 'revised engine configuration' for his factory Ducati during the second day of post-season testing at Valencia.

The Australian, who won two races either side of a mid-2009 break to treat fatigue problems, dropped from first on Monday to second on Tuesday, despite lowering his personal best lap time by almost half a second.

“We weren't able to make much use of the day yesterday because of the high winds but today the conditions were much better,” said Stoner.

Stoner is riding with what sounds like a 'big bang' style engine configuration, compared with the smoother firing order he and Ducati have used since the switch to 800cc in 2007.

“The new engine setting, which I am preferring so far, changes the performance of the bike in different ways, for example in corner exit, so we have to modify the set-up in order to get the most out of it,” he explained.

“I also have to get used to it and adapt my riding style accordingly. It probably means I can't get on the gas as hard and fast out of the corners but can keep it open more further in the corners.”

The #27 also continued work on new forks and tested a new soft rear tyre from Bridgestone.

Stoner's best lap was 0.256sec behind Jorge Lorenzo but 0.333sec ahead of the Spaniard's factory Yamaha team-mate and seven time world champion Valentino Rossi.

“In general I'm very pleased with how things are going,” he concluded.

Team-mate Nicky Hayden continued with a variety of set-up and tyre experiments, completing 84 laps - compared with 44 for Stoner - and clocking the fifth fastest time.

“Today we worked mainly on confirming our impressions from yesterday, running some more tests on the new forks and a bunch of other things on the bike set-up and with the new tyres,” said Hayden, who reduced his best time by 0.377sec, but was over one-second behind Lorenzo.