Ducati Blog

Below are the thoughts of Ducati MotoGP riders after the first practice session of the upcoming race at Donnington Park. The session started under wet conditions but dried out towards the end.

Casey Stoner – 2nd fastest (1:38.872)

“It was good to be able to test the wet setting today because we’ve struggled with it a little this year and we need time to work out the best solution,” Stoner commented. “We’re still far from it at the moment but it felt quite good and we have a good base to work from now.”

“Once we got some laps under our belt in the wet I decided to sit the rest of the session out because even though the track was drying it was very slippery and it would be foolish for us to risk an unnecessary crash on the first day of an important weekend. Hopefully we’ll get a couple of sessions in the dry tomorrow and ideally, from our point of view, we’d like it to be cool.”

Mika Kallio – 7th (1:39.209)

“I think seventh position is not too bad, because it is our first time here with this bike and everything was a little bit difficult for everyone. The things we were trying to find were difficult due to the weather. In the last laps I was able to improve a lot, so at the moment I think we can be more or less happy with where we are.”

“Normally this track has been pretty good for me, like last year I won here in the 250cc race and in 125cc I was always quite fast here. I like the track so I think in the MotoGP class we can also be really fast here. Like we saw today we are able to be in the top ten which is important, but in the race if everything goes well I hope we can be in the top five.”

Nicky Hayden – 10th (1:40.116)

“Typical British weather! It’s been like this since I got here at the start of the week. We started out in the wet and I didn’t have much feel to begin with but we made a couple of changes and got better and better as the session went on. On the last lap I went straight in the last corner and ran wide so I made a little error there. Basically the bike didn’t feel too good in the heavy rain but much better in the damp. The weather looks better for tomorrow so we hope that’s the case because it was difficult to draw any conclusions today.”

Niccolo Canepa, teammate of Mika Kallio and the fourth Ducati rider, finished last (17th) with a time of 1:42.696.

Watch out for Free Practice 2 and Qualifying Practice results tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. Hayden second in Indianapolis Free Practice 1
2. Casey fastest in Free Practice 1 in Germany
3. Casey Stoner tops Free Practice 1 at Qatar
4. Stoner and Hayden want better results at Donnington Park
5. Stoner and Hayden talk about Sepang test