Stoner second at Le Mans

From Marlboro Ducati

Casey Stoner ended the first day of free practice for the Grand Prix de France as the second fastest rider around the Le Mans circuit on a cool (19° C) but, most importantly, dry start to the weekend.

The World Champion ended the day with a time of 1:34.276 as he made gradual progress with the setting of his Ducati, after finding a fast and consistent pace on race tires.

"We're struggling a little bit in T4, as we did last year," Stoner said. "We need a little more acceleration coming onto the straights and it's a bit difficult for us in those tight but long corners. Tomorrow we'll make some changes to try and improve on that but basically the idea is to compensate for it by making our strong points even stronger.

"In any case today has been a good step for us because we haven't been really competitive in the last three races and it's good to start a Grand Prix in the right way again."

Marco Melandri has yet to find the perfect set-up for this track despite finding some impressive pace through the first two splits. The Italian now hopes to improve around the second half of the circuit, particularly under braking, and find an optimum set-up for the race - as he did in China two weeks ago. He was 14th with a time of 1:35.678.