Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner has set the fastest time on the second day of MotoGP testing at Qatar after yesterday's session was washed out by a freak rainstorm.
The Australian was just over half a second faster than Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi who, in turn was only a tenth quicker than Tech3 Yamah's Colin Edwards. Stoner is two seconds outside his own lap record because the track temperature is so low at night.
Rossi had been at the top of the sheets earlier on but Stoner banged in his fastest lap while doing six-lap spurts, presumably to not aggravate his injured wrist.
“We have worked well and we’ve made progress with the set-up of the GP9 so it has been a positive day despite the difficult track conditions. Pretty much the same goes for the wrist – it’s obviously still not 100% yet but it is better than Malaysia and better than I was expecting for this test, so it’s looking hopeful from that point of view too. In general I am satisfied," said Stoner.
Edwards is clearly on the pace and obviously enjoying the new Bridgestone tyres and his change of crew chief. Things aren't so rosy for his team-mate, Britain's James Toseland, who is last and three seconds off the pace.
It looks like Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa will fly home tomorrow for more treatment on his injured knee after a big crash at turn 10 saw him teak his leg and re-injure the hand he bashed in his big Sachsenring get-off.
After sitting second on yesterday's timesheets, Marco Melandri has unsurprisingly slipped down the order on his Hayate thing, but is still ahead of Toseland and the Pramac Ducati pairing.
