Stoner baffled by lack of feel

The Australian appeared to have put his troubles from Jerez behind him with the quickest time in the wet first practice session at Estoril, but a crash and a difficult time in the afternoon as he set the seventh quickest time have left him struggling for answers.

"These are completely different problems to the ones we had in Jerez," said Stoner. "So far I'm still having absolutely no feeling with the front end and I can't explain why we crashed on an out lap, going slow, with the bike upright.

"I was literally cruising, just picking the bike up on the way out of the corner and the front decided to give up on me.

"We've had such good feeling with the front in the past and lately it's gone - there aren't even any close saves, the grip is either there or it's not. I had these problems throughout the session today - so many times I had the front end on my knee and had to pick it up, so something is clearly not right.

"For one reason or another, the bike doesn't feel the same as it has done in the past and we just need to try and figure it out, but I'm sure with a few setup changes we can get there. It wasn't our best day but we're still not far off the pace."

Teammate Marco Melandri had no better fortune, as he ended the day 15th overall as he struggled to find a good setup on his GP8 bike.

"We spent all day working down a particular route that led to nowhere and we lost a lot of time," said the Italian. "The conditions have been mixed, with damp and dry moments, but it was like riding in the wet.

"It's not easy but it is the same for everybody. At the moment we're not on it, I can't ride as I want to. Tomorrow we'll go backwards a little with the setup and hope that the situation improves."