Stoner: Ducati now better prepared

The world championship leader's pace faded during the Assen and Sachsenring races, but after taking pole in California Stoner said the team had made a special effort in practice to improve their speed over long runs.

"We were pretty much using all the old tyres we had, trying to get a better set-up just for the last part of the race, and we were still doing high 1:22s, so that's not too bad after 33 laps on the race tyre, so we feel quite confident for tomorrow," he said.

"I hope that our package can be good enough for the end of the race," Stoner added in an interview with Italia1 television.

"We've done the best job we can with it, so we've just got to wait and see at the end.

"I've not got doubts, I'm very happy with it, but as you've seen in some past races, we haven't had the best luck. We're better prepared for this race, so let's wait and see what conditions are like."

The Australian was revealed to find himself on pole, having gone off the road on his first set of qualifying tyres.

"On my first lap I made a big mistake - I changed up too many gears and ran into one of the corners with a little bit too much pace," Stoner said.

"It didn't really go to plan so I came back out with the second tyre and I wasn't feeling too confident - I'd had a couple of front tucks on the tyre before. But we managed to pull it off and I'm pretty happy.

"We've been doing a really good job all through practice again, we were fastest in all the sessions like last week. Maybe it will be a better result for us in the race tomorrow."

The Ducati rider made a point of apologising to second place qualifier Dani Pedrosa after the session, having inadvertently delayed the Spaniard. Stoner admitted that his error might have cost Pedrosa a pole position.

"On my out-lap I actually held up Dani, so I don't know what kind of lap time he could've done," he said.

"I looked behind me and there were maybe 10 riders trying to get a tow and I didn't know which ones were going fast or slow, so my apologies."