Saturday Feb 16 2008
MotoGP Official Test - Jerez - Day 1

Preparations for the 2008 season began to reach their climax today as the first MotoGP Official Test got underway at Jerez de la Frontera, in Spain. The first of three full days of practice took place in bright sunshine and pleasant temperatures, with the entire quota of MotoGP teams on track together.

Neither Casey Stoner nor his team-mate Marco Melandri used qualifying tyres today, preferring to concentrate on finding the best possible set-up for the Andalusian circuit - one of the most demanding on the World Championship calendar for both the Ducati Marlboro Team riders and their engineers.

With this in mind it was a positive day for Stoner, who lapped just over half a tenth outside lap record pace with a best time of 1'40.651. Melandri was also satisfied with his best effort of 1'41.392 as he improved the feeling with the front end of his GP8. Tomorrow's quest for him is to make similar progress with the rear.


Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro Team), fastest lap: 1'40.651 (66 laps)

"Basically we've just been trying to get the bike to work around this circuit. We struggled here last year and it's been a case of trying to find out why. The Bridgestone tyres work well here but at the moment the bike is not at the best level. We tend to lose grip and I have problems turning into the corners. It is one of the more even circuits so we've been working on the chassis balance and we made some big steps late in the day. We'd hoped to do some racing tyre testing today but that had to be put on one side while we worked this thing out and at the end of the day I'm happy with what we've achieved. You can definitely feel the extra competition here and you can see that the riders are out there to perform. Having all the riders out there, with the sponsors and the fans looking on, it definitely gives you extra motivation. Our position could be a lot better but at the moment we're not worried. The forecast for tomorrow doesn't look good but if it stays fine the plan is to pick up the tyre testing and try some of Bridgestone's qualifiers out for the shootout in the afternoon. Hopefully when we get up in the morning the bike feels good from the start and allows us to focus on the job."

Marco Melandri (Ducati Marlboro Team), fastest lap: 1'41.392 (83 laps)

"I'm quite satisfied with the work we have done, which was all on race tyres, because I can see that we are making progress. We're still lacking a little consistency because the pace on new rubber is quite decent but we're struggling too much when the tyres go off. It's mainly a problem on the rear, which doesn't give me great feeling in the middle of the corner, but on the front we've found a geometry setting that I think is more well-balanced compared to anything we've tried previously in testing. I didn't use a qualifying tyre because my objective is not to set a single fast lap, or to win the car tomorrow. I'm confident that when we find the pace in race trim it will come automatically on a qualifier too."

Jerez Circuit info
Circuit record: Valentino Rossi (Yamaha - 2005) 1'40.596
Best pole: Loris Capirossi (Ducati - 2006) 1'39.064

Official lap times 16/02/2008

1. Hayden (Honda) 1.39.200 (84/107)
2. De Puniet (Honda) 1.39.444 (82/82)
3. Lorenzo (Yamaha) 1.39.528 al (94/94)
4. Edwards (Yamaha) 1.39.629 (78/78)
5. Toseland (Yamaha) 1.39.678 (91/91)
6. De Angelis (Honda) 1.40.165 (72/75)
7. Nakano (Honda) 1.40.192 (76/82)
8. Rossi (Yamaha) 1.40.641 (32/92)
9. Stoner (Ducati) 1.40.651 (59/66)
10. Dovizioso (Honda) 1.40.767 (43/58)
11. Capirossi (Suzuki) 1.40.843 (64/64)
12. Pedrosa (Honda) 1.41.352 (37/37)
13. Melandri (Ducati) 1.41.392 (79/83)
14. Elias (Ducati) 1.41.703 (76/91)
15. Vermeulen (Suzuki) 1.41.763 (59/79)
16. West (Kawasaki) 1.41.821 (27/83)
17. Hopkins (Kawasaki) 1.41.901 (12/28)
18. Jacque (Kawasaki) 1.42.557 (36/67)
19. Canepa (Ducati) 1.42.652 (45/61)
20. Guintoli (Ducati) 1.42.698 (65/68)
21. Guareschi (Ducati) 1.43.435 (61/67)