MotoGP: Casey Stoner makes Jerez breakthrough

MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner had mixed emotions after he made a major set-up breakthrough during a one-day test session in Jerez yesterday.

Relieved to have big progress with the set-up issues that have dogged him at the Jerez circuit during his factory Ducati career, the 22-year-old was also slightly disappointed after he posted a best time of 1.39.218 on a Bridgestone qualifying tyre.

His disappointment came at the realisation that had he found the new set-up over the race weekend, the Aussie believes he would have been in a position to fight for the podium as he dropped 0.5s off his best race lap.

As it was, Sunday’s Spanish GP was Stoner’s worst outing for Ducati in 20 attempts as he slumped to 11th after running off track twice.

As well as making a breakthrough with the set-up of his GP8 machine yesterday, he was also happy with new front and rear Bridgestone tyres that eased some of the braking stability issues he experienced during Sunday’s tough 27-lap race.

Asked how he had made such a significant step in lap times at the test, Stoner told MCN: “The change we made to get that time was so small and it is kind of disappointing that we missed that setting by such a small margin.

“We lifted the bike about two millimetres just to get more transfer.

“The problem is we tried this in testing at the end of last year and it didn’t work.

“But then we had a different swingarm pivot point and a different front fork spring in. With the setting we had for the race we weren’t too far away.

“We just needed to lift the bike a bit to get it to transfer better and I had a lot more traction and a lot better braking stability and it was like a different bike.

“The first exit with the same set-up as the race I could only do a 1.41.5.

“We changed it and bang, immediately I did a 40.8 and then got to a 40.5.

“With that set-up I’m sure I could have raced for the podium. We definitely made a big improvement.”