Stoner comes top on final day in Sepang
Added on Monday, February 9th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Stoner comes top on final day in Sepang
Casey Stoner finished the weekend’s testing in Sepang on top of the time sheets as he continues his recovery from a troublesome hand injury.
The Australian posted a best time of 2:01.043 from his 38 laps as the top three on Saturday’s session has a familiar look to it.
Valentino Rossi was 0.094sec behind on his Yamaha whilst Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi continued his fine form with the day’s third best time at 2:01.262.
Dani Pedrosa missed the session with a knee injury, leaving Andrea Dovizioso as the only Honda factory rider although his eighth place finish was upstaged by Gresini’s Toni Elias, who was the fastest Honda rider on the circuit in fifth.
James Toseland was again the slowest of the regular riders, having been hampered by severe bruising since a heavy accident on the first day of the test.
Speaking after the test, Stoner was delighted with the results over the three days and set his sights firmly on his injury rehabilitation.
“Today wasn’t bad! The more I ride the GP9 the more we understand how to improve the set-up of the new chassis and today we made a big step forward with improving grip and feel with the new bike,” said the 2007 Champion.
“Considering that I have recently had an operation and my wrist has still not fully recovered, to be the fastest rider here is a dream to be honest. Now I have to work hard on improving my physical condition and recovering the level of movement I need to ride the bike properly without pain.
“Now I know that I can step up training on my arm and hopefully the situation will have improved for the Qatar test.
“The GP9 is a good bike and in every test we’ve done with it we’ve come out on top. That doesn’t mean to say that we can afford to relax, though, and we’ll keep our heads down and keep working. I set pretty much the same lap time on both tyre compounds and I actually prefer the harder one. The fact we’ve gone to a single tyre rule doesn’t seem to have an adverse effect on the performance of the Bridgestones – they’re doing a great job, as usual.”
