Stoner confident regardless of weather

The world champion dominated today's wet qualifying session, taking pole by six tenths of a second, but had also been extremely fast in the dry in practice.

He feels Ducati are now in the most competitive shape they have been since he won the season-opener in Qatar.

"We've always had a reasonably good set-up for the wet conditions," Stoner said.

"We found a little bit extra today and we were able to get a really good rhythm and a really good feeling.

"(Ducati's speed) in the dry is the biggest surprise to myself and everybody. We made a big step forward in the Catalunya test, and we're able to run much faster times now.

"The bike's a lot easier to ride, it's a lot smoother, and we can ride how we want to now. We're very, very comfortable at the moment."

Ducati introduced a number of upgrades in the post-race test in Spain, but Stoner said they had used an older set-up to take pole at Donington Park.

"We tried the new engine management system for the wet this morning, but it was a little bit more difficult to ride in the wet, so we went back to the setting we used earlier in the year and last year," he told Italia1 television.

"For the race, we feel quite comfortable wet or dry. If it's a dry race, it's maybe one of the first times that we feel we can run at the front since Qatar, and it's a nice feeling again."