Stoner dominates day one

The first day of the Iveco Grand Prix of Australia saw Casey Stoner lead both the morning and afternoon sessions to put his #27 Repsol Honda 0.3 seconds clear of Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) in the combined times.

Stoner’s morning time of 1:30.475, just under a tenth faster than his FP2 pace, stood as the fastest lap of the day as the Australian joined the other one third of the field who did not improve upon their earlier times.

“I don't feel totally comfortable with the bike today and I'm sure we can improve the bike a lot. The track is certainly bumpier than last year and I think it will be very difficult to get the bike feeling 100 per cent as the circuit is making things worse,” said Stoner.

"In general we've found the Honda is better in certain aspects than what we had last year but with these bumps it’s difficult to compare in other areas. We need to get the bike riding the bumps in the front a lot better, and also find some more rear grip. There is still a lot of work before we find the right race set up and we know we can go a lot faster.”

Lorenzo was optimistic of closing the gap to Stoner on day two.

The Spaniard trails Stoner by 40pts in the championship standings with three races remaining, and remains hopeful that he can prevent the Australian from winning a second world championship in front of his home crowd on Sunday afternoon.

“We know that Casey is very fast here, but today he wasn’t so quick,” Lorenzo said. “We must try to win, and if (that is) not possible, fight for the podium on Sunday.”

Lorenzo admitted to being baffled that his best time in the afternoon, a lap of 1:31.111, was considerably slower than the 1:30.744 he set in the opening 45-minute session.

“Today I felt great in the morning, but in the afternoon not as good,” he said. “It was impossible to replicate the lap time from the morning. We were up to five-tenths (of a second) slower and I’m not sure why – maybe the track conditions were different.”

Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) stepped up his pace to slot himself ahead of Lorenzo in the afternoon despite a repeat of the morning’s misfortune of an early crash. The Italian was followed by Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) with a time of 1:31.495, though it wasn’t enough to knock Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) out of fourth, leaving Spies to rank fifth behind his compatriot in the combined times.

Sixth for the day was Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) thanks to his time he set in the morning, while teammate Dani Pedrosa ranked seventh with a lap of 1:31.543 set in the afternoon. Hiroshi Aoyama (San Carlo Honda Gresini) ranked eighth for the day, with Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) following the Japanese rider by 0.080 seconds with his time set in the morning to rank ninth.

Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) took the tenth spot ahead of Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki), while Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) lingered in 13th, a second and a half behind leading man Stoner.

Home rider Damien Cudlin, who is replacing an injured Héctor Barberá for the Mapfre Aspar team, paced one second behind Toni Elías on the LCR Honda in 16th.