Casey Stoner bemused by Mugello practice struggles

The Australian finished second practice almost half a second down on Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo and his own team-mate Dani Pedrosa, a deficit he admitted he was not impressed with.

Stoner said the team had attempted several changes during the session but was yet to find a solution which provided noticeable benefits.

"We haven't had a great day and aren't too impressed with our pace on the bike," he said.

"This morning we began very far off the pace and slowly made our way forward. This afternoon we were trying to get the hard tyre to work, but every time we went out it didn't work so we came back in to try something different and then go back out but it was still the same.

"We can't seem to get the same tyre temperatures that the others are getting at the moment, we're trying to find it through different set ups, but we haven't found it just yet.

"We have some thinking to do tonight and will try to come back tomorrow with something different."

Pedrosa, second to Lorenzo by just three hundredths of a second, said he too had struggled to match the Yamaha man in first practice, but said he had managed to close the gap during the day.

"We had some troubles with the tyres in the morning, but in the afternoon we made a step forward that I'm happy with in order to keep improving tomorrow," he explained.

"We struggled to get up to the pace a little in FP1, but during the day we were getting closer to Lorenzo, who seems to have the set up quite clear from the beginning.

"We finished the day quite well and we have some ideas for tomorrow; we need to find some more grip and better braking to gain three or four more tenths."