Improved front end feel allowed Stoner to rebuild his confidence at a circuit which rewards his Desmosedici's horsepower and suits
Bridgestone tyres.
Stoner beat
Valentino Rossi in a close battle one year ago in China and was second behind the Yamaha rider on Friday morning. Although Stoner put his factory Ducati fastest of all in the hot afternoon session, the Italian's morning time remained 0.257secs out of reach.
"It's more comfortable for us here," said Casey. "The last two races didn't go well in practice but I believe they could have still been two decent results and for a variety of reasons they turned into not so good ones. We couldn't seem to get things right, no matter what we did or what we tried, but this weekend we seem to be back in control again.
"Front feel is a lot better here, I'm slowly getting my confidence back and I think we can continue to do that over the rest of the weekend," he continued. "We're getting better and better with rear grip but we're still nowhere near perfect. We struggled last year turning the bike in the fast corners at some tracks and we're still working on it now. We're going to make a couple of big changes to one of the bikes tomorrow and hopefully that can improve the lap time."
One man with plenty of confidence to rebuild is Stoner's beleaguered team-mate
Marco Melandri. Unfortunately, the Italian suffered technical problems on his way to 14th place.
"Unfortunately we lost a lot of time today because of two important setbacks and that stopped me from getting through all the work we had planned," confirmed Marco. "This morning it was a problem with the engine, which wasn't performing to its maximum potential in certain areas of the track, and we only worked out what the problem was at the end.
