Reigning MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner officially took the wraps off Ducati's 2009 racebike at Catalunya this afternoon and it would seem the Italian firm is right on the money, with the Aussie setting the fastest time on qualifing tyres.
The youngster was due to ride the bike first tomorrow, but weather conditions meant Ducati had to bring the test forward for one day. Team-mate Marco Melandri will ride the GP9 tomorrow.
The bike is a technical departure for Ducati as it has a carbon-fibre frame, which replaces the traditional steel trellis usually used by the firm and there are sure to be many more secrets under the fairing.
Stoner said: ""I'm happy with the way today has gone. The objective was to understand whether this new chassis concept has potential and I'd say that for now it looks to be the case. We were quickly into some decent times using the same set-up as the GP8. We barely changed anything to adapt it to the characteristics of the GP9 and I immediately felt an improvement so that is positive. I'm sure that with more time to work on it we can go much faster, although that is not the current brief. We'll have time to test it in the winter. Tomorrow we'll get back on my GP8 because we have some important tyre testing to do. There is still a lot of the 2008 season left and we want to be competitive."
Test times (unofficial):
1. Casey STONER (Ducati) 1:41.533
2. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha) 1:41.857
3. Shinya NAKANO (Honda) 1:42.039
4. James TOSELAND (Yamaha) 1:42.505
5. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda) 1:42.699
6. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda) 1:42.721
7. Sylvain GUINTOLI (Ducati) 1:42.755
8. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda) 1:42.775
9. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki) 1:42.782
10. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda) 1:42.818
11. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha) 1:43.127
12. Toni ELIAS (Ducati) 1:43.197
13. Dani PEDROSA (Honda) 1:43.552
14. John HOPKINS (Kawasaki) 1:43.630
15. Marco MELANDRI (Ducati) 1:44.326
16. Olivier JACQUE (Kawasaki) 1:44.927
17. Aoki NOBUATSU (Suzuki) 1:45.011
18. Erwan NIGON (Honda) 1:45.603
19. Vittoriano GUARESCHI (Ducati) 1:46.122