Cool and unpredictable weather conditions upset the rhythm of today’s opening free practice sessions at Mugello in the build-up to Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix. Honda LCR rider Casey Stoner ended the day in an impressive fifth place on the time sheets and with the fastest top speed of 325.9 kph. The uncertain track conditions resulted in today’s times being two seconds outside the qualifying record set by Valentino Rossi here last year.

Rain showers affected both the morning and afternoon sessions with the LCR team continuing to search for improved rear grip and more precise front-end feel. Stoner posted his fastest lap of 1’52.101 on lap nine of the afternoon session just before a short rain delay. Earlier, he had been fourth fastest in the morning free practice session.

“The weather is very unpredictable, it feels like we are in northern Europe, not Italy in the summer. But overall Casey and the team did a good job in both of today’s sessions, working towards a race set-up. Casey could have stayed in the top three at the end of the session when we decided to check a different front set-up and Hopkins and Gibernau went faster by just a fraction of second.”

“Again the weather was not great today and we lost some valuable track time. I was competitive in both sessions but the track is in worse condition compared to last year -- perhaps from all the F1 testing, there seems to be a lot more bumps. I really hope the weather is better for qualifying although I believe the forecast is not good. Hopefully we can find some more rear grip and better feeling from the front-end, which is critical with all the fast corners here.”