Frustrated Stoner promises better race

The championship leader, who can clinch his first title if he finishes ahead of Valentino Rossi tomorrow, could only manage ninth in qualifying at Motegi. It is the first time he has qualified outside the top five since joining Ducati, but he remains bullish about his race prospects.

"I still believe we can fight at the front, no problem," said Stoner.

"We just have to really come up with something more in the morning warm-up.

"It's a bad starting position for me, but last year many times I started from this sort of position, and we can probably arrive at the front quite quickly."

He explained that the poor qualifying performance was simply a set-up issue.

"We couldn't get anything together, couldn't get a good feeling with the bike," Stoner said.

"The harder tyre isn't working with the set-up that we're using at the moment. Just a lot of things this afternoon that we couldn't seem to get right.

"No matter what we did, we kept getting worse and worse every setting change we did.

"I'm really frustrated because the second qualifying tyre would have improved the time I think, but unfortunately the setting change we did again made the braking point almost impossible. As I came into the last chicane the bike wouldn't go back a gear so I completely destroyed the last corner and lost more than half a second, I think, and then everything was a big disaster again.

"The setting we had this morning was quite good, but as soon as we arrive in the afternoon the setting from the morning just doesn't seem to work so well and we struggle a lot to try and find a solution."

Stoner is certain that the problem is with the Ducati's set-up rather than the Bridgestone tyres.

Although Michelin's recovery continued today as the Repsol Hondas and Valentino Rossi claimed the front row positions, the Bridgestone-shod Kawasakis and Gresini Honda's Toni Elias will start from row two. It is only the second time all season that Stoner has been out-qualified by another Bridgestone runner.

"The tyres are not so bad," he said. "We need to work a lot with the setting, especially in the hot conditions. The bike starts to move around a lot."

The Australian is optimistic that Ducati can find a solution to his problems in the pre-race warm-up.

"(I'm) not so much worried. We still have 20 minutes in the morning to find a good set-up," said Stoner.

"We already know one setting that we have to go back to that we're quite happy with. Just this afternoon we were trying a lot of different things and none of it was really working, so we have to come back and make a new plan."

Stoner was also out-qualified by teammate Loris Capirossi for the first time, as the Italian took eighth on the grid.

"I have to give credit to my team - they have been very reactive this weekend and even if we are struggling again, as usual with the power delivery which doesn't seem to suit my riding style, we've made a few small steps forward," said Capirossi.

"We've tried a lot of small changes and finally we found a race pace with which I am satisfied. Of course, my rhythm isn't the fastest but it's not so bad, around the low 1:48s. I think it is the rhythm for a reasonable race tomorrow."