Stoner still confident of race chances

Stoner stopped on track with 20 minutes of qualifying remaining, and had to hitch a lift back to the pits to get his spare bike.

"Unfortunately we were a bit unlucky in qualifying, I had a little problem with my number one bike, with which I've been doing all the settings, it stopped just before we went to start our qualifying laps and I think it took me maybe ten minutes to get back to the box on a scooter," said Stoner.

"That was a lot of time out and also we didn't have the same settings on the second bike, so when I tried to do some fast times I just didn't feel as comfortable as I had with my number one bike.

"Anyway, the second row is quite good enough, with almost the same lap time as the front row."

Although Valentino Rossi put his Michelin-shod Yamaha 0.891 seconds clear of the field in qualifying, Stoner believes Bridgestone will have the advantage in the race.

"We are competitive with our race tyre lap times, they are very good, so once again we are feeling quite confident," he said.

"I'm very happy with the settings we found during practice and I'm looking forward to the race.

"Even if there are a lot of other riders going so fast this weekend, the race tyre times are very close indeed. I think it will be a very close race until maybe the last five four laps."