Assen - Free practice times (1).

Stoner is dominating again. Lets hope the others catch up to make it more of a contest. Go Rossi!!!!!!

Almost a second quicker than Rossi's fastest lap from last year and it's only the first session.

Looks like Ducati's improvements will work here too. Still early but promising for Stoner.

Rossi as fast as last year... 2007 - M1 with 3 years tyre data... 2008 - M1 8 months tyre data... he will be up with CS on race day and they will both be flying! sat is the Vale/Casey show! edwards to be fighting with one of the 2 repsol hondas, if not both, for 3rd place. Edwards is a great team rider and if he can benefit yamaha by stealing points from Dani/Honda he will do! look at the effort he put into Assen 06 to try to beat hayden! i bet he was thinking as much about Rossi and Yamaha as he was himself at that point! was so gutted when he fell! he may not ever be a moto gp champion but he deserves to win a race!

I hope there will be some racing this weekend. The constant winning by 4+ seconds is getting well and truely boring.

I wouldn't be writing Pedrosa off just yet. He managed second fastest lap last outing, and he's thereabouts again.

Great start by Casey. Fingers crossed (already) for a dry race.

Brutal !!! Go Casey Smoke Em'

Looks like they got the bugs worked out of the Duc. Pre race Briefing: " Casey, Hold throttle wide open 100% ". Go Edwards!!!!

Looks a lot like last week. That's an uber fast lap by Casey right at the star of the first session. This years power has clearly now found traction and the CS/Duk package has moved on to another level, I reckon he's taken a second a lap off his race times this year...would love to see the new package go round the earlier tracks just to see what they're capable of now..., the japs better start development or the only view anybody's going to get of casey is his rear.....some would say it does most of his talking anyway...just a joke ok...

Wow, times have been up here for nearly 30 mins and no Casey haters. Yup, I'd steer clear of the comments section too if I was proven so horribly wrong over and over again. Casey is world class, full stop.

Oh and for all you sore losers who think he wouldnt win without aids, I'm curious, when did they introduced TC into the 250cc class when he was winning races? Oh that's right, they didn't! If anyone has proven they can be competetive on anything they're given it's casey. He's had to, since his early days were invariably spent on less competetive machinery than Rossi, Pedrosa or Lorenzo were ever given.

Go Hayden!!!!!

This week's mcn says he only found out about (pedrosa's) latest rcv chassis when he watched the catalunya race on tv and the commentators mentioned it - nice teamwork hrc - but now he's demanded it, and got a proper engine, he's up to speed again.

Just need to hold it together for a full race distance!!

RXracer-- he's doing very well in Motogp thanks. Pleas don't bring up his previous record of 7 wins in 77 races in the world championships as it makes it look even more like the bike....

Different race, same crap in the forum. For christ, you lot are worse than a nagging wife.

GO CASEY!!!

It will be interesting to get some vision of the CS Ducati at Assen. The bike looked much tidier on turn in and corner exit at Donnington. While the exit looked tidier than before is it really faster or are the gains in being made in the early part of the corners and carrying through to the exit.
I think someone in another forum mentioned Ducati now has a new rider assist system that brings it back on par with the advanced Yamaha system.

something going on - that thing about nicky finding out about pedrosa new chassis is straight up bull****.

Mille R----good contribution, you sound like a nagging wife!! if you want to see your own opinion write it.....

the name says it all if the racing continues like last weekend something needs to be done if anyone doubts stoner gets a big advantage from traction control then they are blind. i hope everyone gets on the pace in the next session or i wont even bother watching the race on saturday as it will be just as boring as last weekend

RXRacer - pointless post. wasnt needed.

You know what one of the biggest rider aids is?

Great tyres. If you got bad ones you can't go fast. Simple. I'm sure Rossi would agree.

But they keep on being developed every year and no one seems to complain (nor should you).

Time to accept that traction control is part of the continuous development that occurs in MotoGP. This, nor just about any other motorsport is just about the riders/drivers. It's time for the manufacturers to compete too. Get over it. EVERYONE uses TC.

And if it were as simple as traction control give me a good reason why the other Ducatis aren't up there with Stoner.

well for a staert the d antin bikes dont have the same electronics package as the factory has. or suspension. or tyres

so there u go

TC kills motorsport, period