Stoner takes prize in Jerez
Added on Monday, March 30th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments
Stoner takes prize in Jerez
Casey Stoner took home a special edition BMW 135i yesterday after posting the fastest time in this weekend’s official MotoGP test.
The 2007 world champion posted a fastest time of 1:38.646 with 10 minutes remaining in the traditional pre-season BMW M Award session.
The Australian, who has tended to struggle at Jerez in competitive racing, secured the award for the second year in succession, finishing 0.719 seconds ahead of Valentino Rossi and even found time to celebrate towards his pit crew on the home straight.
The session was called off with three minutes remaining due to bad weather earning Stoner the keys to the limited edition F1 Sauber 1-series.
“I really don’t know where it came from – on this track I’ve never so much as taken a podium, or even started on the front row (here),” said Stoner after the session.
“It’s really been a bogey track for both myself and my Ducati bike. The last two years have been difficult (at Jerez).
“But today we found a good setting this morning and we came out for this qualifying and didn’t really expect much. I thought everyone else was going to up the ante – and they did, they got the lap times down, but I never expected to be able to do the times that I did when I needed to pull it out.”
Behind Rossi, Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi continued his strong start to the season with the third fastest time of the session, with Jorge Lorenzo and Chris Vermeulen the only other riders to finish under the 1:40 mark.
The weekend was once again a difficult one for Britain’s James Toseland as he crashed out in similar fashion to the accident that he suffered in Sepang earlier in the year.
The crash, which forced the session to be red-flagged, will have done little for the South Yorkshireman who was just beginning to regain confidence after the incident in Malaysia.
“Unfortunately it was the same kind of crash today to what he had in Sepang,” said Yamaha Tech 3 team principal Herve Poncharal. !It hurt him. It was his first timed lap after leaving the pit with a fresh tyre. It looks like he should hopefully be OK, even though he was motionless in the gravel for a little while.
“James was recovering well from the Sepang crash; Qatar was a big step in recuperation for him, and until the crash everything was going a lot better for him here. He was in the group in which we think that he can be and making a lot of progress.”
| Pos | Rider | Team | Time | Diff |
| 1 | Casey Stoner | Ducati | 1:38.646 | |
| 2 | Valentino Rossi | Fiat Yamaha | 1:39.365 | +0.719 |
| 3 | Loris Capirossi | Rizla Suzuki | 1:39.757 | +1.111 |
| 4 | Jorge Lorenzo | Fiat Yamaha | 1:39.829 | +1.183 |
| 5 | Chris Vermeulen | Rizla Suzuki | 1:39.848 | +1.202 |
| 6 | Mika Kallio | Pramac Ducati | 1:40.149 | +1.503 |
| 7 | Andrea Dovizioso | Repsol Honda | 1:40.168 | +1.552 |
| 8 | Steve Gibernau | Francisco Hernando Ducati | 1:40.228 | +1.582 |
| 9 | Toni Elias | Gresini Honda | 1:40.266 | +1.602 |
| 10 | Colin Edwards | Monster Tech 3 Yamaha | 1:40.305 | +1.659 |
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