Istanbul : Ducati – Day TwoDucati Marlboro Team men Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi will start tomorrow's Turkish Grand Prix from the second row of the grid after qualifying fourth and fifth, narrowly missing out on the front row.
Stoner - who has been in impressive
form all weekend, running fastest in two practice sessions - ended this afternoon's qualifying session just half a second off pole. Back-on-form Capirossi was 0.184 seconds off his team-mate after improving the set-up of his Desmosedici GP7.
CASEY STONER, 4th fastest, 1m 53.375s
"We are very confident on race set-up. We are reasonably sure of what set-up and what tyres we're going to use for the race so we didn't have to do too much testing this afternoon and I think we can look forward to a good battle up front. I was in the pits for a while before my qualifying runs just because we had already tested all the tyres we needed to and we know what we're going to use, so there was no real point doing more laps to wear myself out and risk things. The first qualifier didn't go too well, I wasn't very confident with it, I ran wide and didn't do the best effort. The second qualifier would've been a lot better but unfortunately I couldn't get rid of a few riders before the lap, they were tailing me, waiting for me to go. I suppose I slowed down too much trying to get rid of them, the tyres got too cold and when I started the lap the tyres were moving around a lot. As the lap went on I got a bit better and a bit better but it was just my fault for taking it too easy on the out lap."
LORIS CAPIROSSI, 5th fastest, 1m 53.559s
"This afternoon we made some changes for maybe less rear grip but more front-end stability.
As soon as I got out of the pits I was able to lap do 1m 54s, so our race pace is good. We had two qualifiers: a new tyre and a more standard tyre. I tried the new one first and it was good, it's got a lot of potential. I felt so good with that tyre that in one corner in the second split I got third gear half an hour earlier than usual, but I was too fast, went onto the kerb and almost crashed. Maybe I lost seven tenths right there. When I got back to the pit I only had one tyre left which isn't one of my favourites but I gave 110 per cent and finally I got fifth. The second row isn't so bad. What makes me very happy is that I really enjoyed riding today and I feel at ease in race trim. Bridgestone have made a really good job, they've solved a lot of problems we had last year here and tomorrow we will be able to fight at the front. I don't want to make predictions, I just want to enjoy myself again and we will see what happens."
Ducati Corse
