Australian Casey Stoner was the fifth fastest rider at the post race Barcelona test on Monday,
Stoner was working in small doses on development of the Ducati Desmosedici GP9 after an exhausting Sunday race in which he
was visible suffering after the race. The Australian posted a fastest lap of 1’42.763, slightly quicker than his best
race lap, as he performed a reduced testing schedule.
“I had a bit of
work on my arms and legs when I got out of bed this morning, because I was cramping up,” said Casey Stoner, who was
suffering from illness all weekend before the tough podium fight. “We seem to be able to do a couple of laps on the
bike at least, so we could get a few things done.”
The Ducati Marlboro
rider left the majority of the extensive work to his new teammate Nicky Hayden, but still used the test constructively to
confirm settings and further examine the usage of a carbon swingarm.
“We’ve
been trying the carbon swingarm again with a few more settings, and we found a few positive things. We haven’t done
a lot of laps today, but the bike was feeling good. We still need to improve the rear traction. We worked a little on the
new engine management system to try to find out how to make it work a little better. Everything seems to be working well,
but today was just to make sure that everything was ok. I cut the test short because I was still sore and too tired after
a couple of laps,” added the 2007 World Champion, Stoner then went on to explain the differences between the carbon
fibre version and its aluminium equivalent.
“The carbon fibre swingarm
is more stable, but sometimes it is too stiff. I’ve been using the aluminium one recently because I find that it can
conserve the tyres towards the end of the race –it has got a lot more grip, but you just lose some of the stability.
We can do roughly the same lap times on both of them.”
