MotoGP Indianapolis, Free Practice: Casey Stoner “The asphalt remains slippery”

Casey Stoner achieved the best time in Indianapolis, the scene of the twelfth stage of the 2011 world championship. The world leader improved the time set in the morning by 3 seconds, stopping the clock at a time of 1'40.724, just 6 tenths from the record of the track of 1'40.152 (Lorenzo, 2009). However, he still has tire problems and tomorrow he will work with the team to be ready for qualifying.

“This afternoon the track was a little better and consequently the times also dropped – said Stoner – The track has cleaned up, but I still don't feel comfortable with the new surface. The asphalt remains slippery and this is my least favorite circuit of the entire calendar. It's very narrow, slippery and the new asphalt is not good, it's not just dirty, there seems to be something strange at the junctions, something oily that creates problems. Having said that, we haven't been able to work much on the bike, we made a small change this morning and another in the afternoon, but we're struggling to find a good feeling with the bike. This afternoon we tried the harder compound on the front which gave us a positive feedback and allowed us to be a little faster, but in general I hope the track improves so we can work in the right direction for the race. In the last few outings I found a lot of traffic and even an animal! I saw something out of the corner of my eye, not sure what it was, maybe a groundhog. I thought it was a piece of motorcycle, I'm happy that nothing happened in this unusual "encounter!".