Casey Stoner dominated the opening afternoon of the USGP at Laguna Seca today, spending the majority of the first free practice at the top of the time sheets and finishing up 0.233 seconds clear of his closest rival. Stoner’s best effort came on his 24th lap of 26 and at 1’21.699 it was just over two tenths shy of his own circuit record, set on his way to victory here in 2007.
Stoner’s team-mate Nicky Hayden worked hard throughout the session on the set-up of his Desmosedici GP10 machine and nobody completed more laps than the 33 of the American at his home circuit. However, with over a second gap to his pacesetting team-mate Hayden knows he has work to do in tomorrow’s remaining two sessions.
CASEY STONER (Ducati Team) 1st (1’21.699)
“Today we tried a few different things with the setting because we still need to find a better feeling with the front and also we need to adapt the braking because there are a lot more bumps here in the braking zones than there were last year. In general we have to be happy because we’re setting the pace at the moment but we have to continue this tomorrow. In a lot of races this season we’ve been fast on a Friday but not able to improve and lost ground to the others so we want to make sure that doesn’t happen here. I’m not looking to be first in practice, I would like to be first at the end of the race on Sunday.”
NICKY HAYDEN (Ducati Team) 7th (1’22.902)
“The session didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped but we got a good base and learned a few things. Casey going so fast is a good thing for us because it shows the potential of the bike at this track even though we know he is really special around here. From our side we need to work a little on the gearbox tomorrow because the engine is quite different to what we had last year. It’s maybe something we need to look at tonight. This track is really tricky because there are so many second and third gear corners so we need to find something that works in every one of them.”
Circuit Record: Casey Stoner (Ducati – 2008), 1’21.488 – 159.483 Km/h
Best Pole: Casey Stoner (Ducati – 2008), 1’20.700 – 161.040 Km/h
