Stoner encouraged by Friday showing

Ducati rider Stoner, winner of six races so far this year, dominated morning practice but it was 25-year-old Yamaha rider Sylvain Guintoli who ended up on top in the afternoon, demoting the Australian to second place.

Despite that, Stoner was confident Ducati will be competitive again this weekend, although he admitted there is still room for improvement.

"I'm very happy to be back on the bike, it felt a little bit alien this morning because it feels like a long time since we were racing, but we've managed to get used to it pretty quick," said Stoner.

"The track, the tyres, the bike, everything seems to be working pretty well for me, I'm just happy to be back out there and we seem to be quite competitive again.

"This track is still a lot of fun to ride but now there seems to be a lot of areas that want to have you out of the seat, the surface isn't giving a really good feeling at the moment. We need a little bit more traction at those points where we're slipping and sliding.

"We also need to make a little improvement to the way the bike turns on the exit of the corners because we're losing a bit there."

Teammate Loris Capirossi was also encouraged by Friday's work after posting the fourth fastest time.

"I'm very happy because we've worked effectively since this morning," he said. "This afternoon we made a few little changes which worked well, so I could do a lot of laps around 1m59.5s. I did my best lap on my final lap even though I was stuck behind Nakano who was slower than me, so I think I could have gone even faster.

"We have some other set-up ideas to try tomorrow and another tyre to test, the tyre that Casey thinks is the best of the three tyres we have here and which I've yet to try.

"It looks like this could be a positive weekend. We are using the standard spec engine, because you need a lot of power here, and the chassis set-up we used at the Sachsenring which gives me a very good feeling."