Championship series leader Valentino Rossi set the early pace in the first practice session of the Australian MotoGP round at Phillip Island. Marlboro Ducati’s Casey Stoner narrowly failed to overhaul the Italian finishing the session just 1/10th slower on the very last lap.

Stoner had struggled in the 3rd sector of the track but on his very last lap was fastest in the first two splits, set his personal fastest time in the 3rd sector but he finished the session with a best time of 1:31.167 to Rossi’s 1:31.032. Rossi set his fastest lap early but spent the most time on the bike of all the riders completing 31 laps.
Dani Pedrosa and Alex De Angelis were 3rd and 4th with the steady Colin Edwards taking 5th on the Tech 3 Yamaha. Jorge Lorenzo struggled setting the 6th best time more than a second off Rossi’s best. Lorenzo crashed at Honda corner and both satellite Ducati’s crashed with Canepa taken to the medical center for assessment (later released and all okay). Mika Kallio edged out Nicky Hayden for the best of the rest in the Ducati stakes with 9th and 11th fastest times respectively.

Stoner has won at his home track the last two seasons and is keen to make it a hat trick. Taking victory on Sunday would be a beautiful thing for the Ducati man who sat out 3 races this season as a result of a mystery, energy sapping medical condition that has still not been adequately explained. Despite that Stoner seems back to full race pace finishing 2nd in his first race back to the series last time out at Estoril.

Casey Stoner:- “I think Phillip Island would have to be my favourite track now,” said the Ducati Marlboro rider when speaking to www.shell.com/ducati. “But there’s also a couple more that I like, Mugello and Brno. The characteristics of these three circuits are very flowing, very wide-open tracks, especially when we’re on a MotoGP bike going as fast as we are.

link: MotoGP.com



Last year Stoner claimed pole with a 1:28.665 and during the race Nicky Hayden set the fastest lap and a new lap record of 1:30.059 on his way to a podium finish on a Honda.