Ducati Marlboro Team riders Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi completed the first day of practice for Saturday's Dutch TT in first and 11th positions. World Championship leader Stoner, fresh from his genius win in last Sunday's damp British Grand Prix, was once again in superb form, topping both morning and afternoon sessions aboard his Desmosedici GP7 to end the day more than two tenths ahead of his closest rival. Capirossi meanwhile experimented with different Bridgestone rear slicks - the company's traditional 16.5-inch rear and its newer 16-inch rear - the Italian ending the day setting his best time with the 16.5.
Casey Stoner, fastest, 1m 37.828s"I don't know why but we got a little bit confused with the settings and went backwards this morning, so I wasn't overly confident. The time we had on the track this afternoon was very positive, we managed to get everything sorted and towards the end of the session I was feeling quite confident with a different tyre we had chosen. It looks like we've found our race tyre already, it's the hardest compound we've got, we did the fastest lap on that tyre, so we know it's going to last the race, which is good. We're looking very good if the weather plays up again tomorrow. The settings we use here are pretty similar to what we used at Donington, not straight out of the box, but you don't need a totally different set-up here like you did with the old track. There's no big g-force areas anymore, they've pretty much destroyed an awesome racetrack. It's so disappointing, you keep thinking ‘where's the old one gone', it's not the most fun to ride anymore. But we've still got a job to do here. Donington and here seem to have pretty similar surfaces now, there's not much grip here either, it seems dusty in places, so we're having to work in similar areas to what we were working on at Donington."
Loris Capirossi, 11th fastest, 1m 38.600s"We tested some tyres today but have yet to find what we really want. I tried the 16 but I was lacking rear grip into the corners, especially through the last part of the track. At the end of the afternoon session I tried the 16.5 again, it felt better and I did my best lap at the end, even though the bike settings weren't ideal for the tyre. Seven tenths isn't a small gap but we have a good margin for improvement with the set-up. In general, I feel okay and if tomorrow's weather is similar to today's, we should be make a few changes and go faster."
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