Team LCR rider Casey Stoner finished fifth fastest and the top Honda rider in today’s free practice sessions at a cold and heavily overcast Le Mans Circuit. Both the morning and afternoon sessions were run on a dry track with a heavy rain shower in between.
It was an impressive first outing on a Honda RCV at Le Mans which features nine right-hand turns and just four left. With a track temperature of just 16 degrees, improving left-side rear grip was the focus of the set-up work by Stoner and crew chief Ramon Forcada today.

This afternoon Stoner’s best lap was just 0.3s behind the fastest time in a closely competitive session that saw the top 12 riders separated by less than one second. In the morning session Stoner took a spectacular, high-speed detour across the gravel trap at turn one but recovered to set his fastest time on the penultimate lap.

“This track has special demands for grip especially when it is cold but Casey was third until the fast laps at the end by Nakano and Hopkins, perhaps both on soft tyres. Casey is focussing on rear-end grip, especially the left side, and if we can improve this part of the set-up I think we have a strong package for the race.”

“Fifth and the first Honda is OK considering I am struggling for rear grip on left side. The rightside grip is not a big problem but the left is spinning-up on the exit -- if we can fix that problem I can make up some time. The track is not really too much different on a MotoGP bike compared to a 250 -- you’ve just got more power to play with. In morning I just lost the front-end on the brakes, so I pickedup it and rode across the gravel -- it was fast but looked worse on TV that it was.”