Honda LCR rider Casey Stoner finished 11th overall in free practice today, running only race tyres in both of the two, one hour sessions. The LCR team refused to get involved in a qualifying race today, preferring to focus on race set-up in readiness for Sunday’s 24 laps of Motegi.

Stoner ended the afternoon session with a fast, four lap run, posting his best time of the day on lap three of this sequence -- his 19th lap of 20 in the session. In the morning session Stoner was quickly on the pace, posting a lap just three hundredths (0.03s) behind the best time set by John Hopkins. Weather conditions were warm, but overcast today.

“I believe that at least nine riders in front of Casey were on soft qualifying tyres this afternoon so even though Casey was 11th, I am not worried. We decided to concentrate on race set-up and evaluating the many choices of Michelin tyres for this race.”

“I’m quite impressed with today, I have done a lot of fast times on race tyres. I think I could have been very close to the top but almost everyone else ran qualifying tyres this afternoon, but no worries -- I concentrated on race set-up. This morning I had a nice feeling with the chassis and in the afternoon we ran both my RCV race bikes, trying different spring rates and looking for more rear grip. At this track you are either on the brakes hard, or on the gas and grip coming off the turns is very important. Michelin had quite a few tyre choices today, and some look good for the race distance, it’s just a matter of whether the lap times will be quick enough -- front grip is OK, we need more at the rear.”