Stoner not disappointed with fourth spot

The Ducati Marlboro rider was the top Bridgestone runner, with the front row swept by the three Michelin-shod Yamahas of Jorge Lorenzo, James Toseland, and Colin Edwards.

"To be honest I expected to be on the second row so I'm not too disappointed with the result," Stoner said. "Although I reckon that if I had another qualifying tyre like the one I set my fast lap on I could have comfortably been on the front.

"Anyway, sometimes there are certain things you can't plan for and the important thing is that we're in a good position for the race."

He added: "We made one big change to the bike for third free practice and it was really positive but in tonight's qualifying session we tried a few things that didn't have the effect we'd hoped for, so we'll go back to what we know works and I think that with a few more small changes we can be really competitive."

Stoner also praised World Superbikes champion Toseland for his stunning debut, but said that he will treat the Briton and other rookies like Lorenzo and JiR Scot Honda's Andrea Dovizioso like any other rival.

"There a lot of people with good race times, especially Lorenzo, so it will be interesting to see where everybody is in the warm-up," said the Australian.

"I know Jorge well from my 125 and 250 days so I'm not surprised that he and Andrea are fast but I must admit I didn't expect James Toseland to be so strong and I take my hat off to him.

"If it comes down to a battle between us it won't be anything different to any other race - everybody on the grid is a strong rival and they all have to be beaten."

Stoner's teammate Marco Melandri, on his first qualifying session for Ducati, kept on struggling with the bike and qualified in a lowly 16th position, two seconds behind the sister Desmosedici GP8.

"Unfortunately there's not much to say about today because things haven't gone well," said the Italian. We've tried a lot of things but nothing has had the result we hoped for.

"I'm not able to ride well and we just can't seem to find the grip on the front or the rear so I'm just too slow. We want to try out so many things but there's no more time so we'll just have to see how we go in the race"