Stoner says Ducati in good shape

Casey Stoner believes Ducati's form in this week's Sepang MotoGP test bodes well for the 2010 season, although he admitted there was still a lot of work to do to get the latest bike fully up to speed

The 2007 champion was second to Yamaha's Valentino Rossi on both days in Malaysia, with a gap of 0.5s on Thursday and 0.4s today.

"We are quite happy with the test," said Stoner. "We have definitely improved the set-up of the bike, trying some different things with the swingarm.

"The lap times are still not where we want them to be and we have to work on taking another couple of tenths off on hard tyres, but to be consistently doing 2m01.9s or 2m02.0s laps is a decent pace.

"Considering that we are using a different engine to the one we've had for the last three years and some other new parts that we still need to get the best out of we certainly can't be unhappy with where we're at.

"There is work to do but we have two more test sessions before the season starts for real. In general I am really pleased with how it's gone."

Stoner's team-mate Nicky Hayden was just over one second off the Australian's pace today, but felt the weather had stopped him showing his true speed.

"These past two days have flown by and the weather hasn't helped us to make the most of the track time available," he said. "Anyway, this morning we got the chance to find a wet setting for the new forks and engine.

"When we went out in the dry I could feel an instant improvement on yesterday and I set a decent pace but then we didn't improve further. I would have liked to post a better lap time but just when we put some new tyres in the rain came back."