Australian rider Casey Stoner finished the opening day of free practice with the second fastest time at Istanbul Park following another impressive performance aboard the LCR Honda. Stoner set his fastest time of 1’53.861 on lap ten of the afternoon session, just 0.2s slower than American Nicky Hayden, also riding a Honda.
Now recovered from the energy-sapping illness he suffered at the Qatar GP, Stoner was on the pace from the opening laps of the morning free practice session. Repeating the form which secured pole position in Doha, the 20 year-old Australian posted the fastest in the morning session ahead of Marco Melandri and Valentino Rossi.
In the afternoon session Stoner was uninjured in a slow-speed fall at turn nine at the end of the back straight which forced him to switch to his spare bike.

“ This was another very strong performance by Casey following Qatar. He was fastest in the morning session and only dropped to second following a small crash this afternoon. Unfortunately the spare bike was not set-up correctly for Casey so he could not improve his time but everything is under control.”

“I didn’t know what to expect here after Qatar so I’m pretty happy even though I had a small crash this afternoon; I hit a bump and lost the front-end so it wasn’t a big problem. The track conditions today were not good, everyone was sliding a lot and in the afternoon the wind was quite strong, especially through the fast turn 11 right-hander.”