Stoner tops the FP1 at Phillip Island

The Australian rider is determined to win the world championship, or at least to give it his absolute best, in his home race at the Phillip Island circuit, he has a great opportunity to try.

Once again, Stoner has set his best time after completing very few laps, exactly three including the flying lap. His time was 1:30.475, a fantastic time for the first practice session. He was the fastest in all sectors; only in the third sector did Lorenzo match his time of 17.365.

After setting that time, Stoner went down on the next lap, the front end tucked in at the slowest corner of the circuit, so it was a very minor crash, and he quickly got back on the bike and took it to the pits.

Jorge was second. On his last lap he came very close to the Australian rider: in the first sector they were only 9 thousandths apart, in the second it was 44, in the third he held on, but in the last one he fell back to 269 thousandths. The point is that he managed to improve with each of his runs, whereas Stoner did not, which is why he appeared very annoyed.

Marco Simoncelli was third, his time was 476 thousandths behind Stoner’s. The Italian rider also suffered a crash a few laps into his session. Simoncelli is one of those riders who push very hard from the start, which sometimes costs him.

In fourth place, a surprising Colin Edwards, who finished ahead of Lorenzo’s teammate Ben Spies on the Tech3 satellite Yamaha, is one second behind Stoner. We will see whether he can hold that position in the upcoming sessions.

Dani Pedrosa finished sixth. For now he makes little noise, but that is always the case with him: he goes about his work step by step and in the end he is right there.

The position of Valentino Rossi (12th) is surprising. On the Ducati with the twin-spar chassis, he finished behind Hayden (7th), Capirossi (10th) and Randy De Puniet (11th), all of whom were on Ducatis with the carbon chassis, and the last two are also satellite bikes. It is clear that a bike cannot be developed in two days, and the first chassis is not going to work, but we want to see Valentino where his talent should place him.

Alvaro Bautista, with a time of 1:32.393, has dropped to thirteenth position. They are surely searching for a setup, and they are less advanced with it than at other circuits.

To close the list of Spanish riders in MotoGP, we have to go down to sixteenth position, where Toni Elías is, on the LCR bike Honda. What else can we say about Toni? He still has complications, and it doesn’t look like this will be his Grand Prix. He is 3.166 seconds off the lead.