Estoril MotoGP: Casey Stoner exceeds expectations

Casey Stoner admitted his stunning front row start for tomorrow’s Estoril MotoGP race exceeded his expectations after he missed pole position by just 0.3s.
The Aussie, who has missed the last three races while recovering from a serious fatigue issue, roared back to form this afternoon as he claimed third place on the grid behind Fiat Yamaha duo Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.
A best lap of 1.36.528 was just 0.054s away from Italian Rossi in second place as the 23-year-old edged out Dani Pedrosa to claim his first front row start since the German GP at the Sachsenring.
Stoner, who was fourth quickest in practice yesterday, said: “I didn’t expect to be this fast so quickly and to be honest this afternoon everything felt pretty good. I was actually disappointed not to be on pole! I’d felt very sore and tired yesterday but nothing in the condition that I’ve been in at previous races. It is more than just the fatigue of not being on the bike and not actually training for the last five months. This has been a nice start to the weekend and now I’ve got to finish it tomorrow. I feel a lot more competitive than I have done for a long time and it is great to be back up at the front. To come back and be on the front row is great and I had the opportunity to fight for the pole position, which is much better than I expected. We didn’t quite make it but on race tyres I’m very, very happy. Hopefully I can stay with the other guys and put up a decent fight and maybe mix it up a little bit for the championship.”
Stoner said his push for pole position was hampered by a lack of performance from his soft compound Bridgestone tyres and he added: “We were competitive on race tyres but when we put the soft tyres on to make them work we couldn’t get any grip. We weren’t generating any heat into the right hand side of the tyre so I don’t know if it was a faulty batch or we were just unlucky. The second tyre had more grip but I didn’t use it to its full potential. Anyway, a front row start is nice for us and I want to thank my whole team and everybody else who has stuck by me lately. We’ve had a lot of critics while I’ve been away and I’ve had to laugh at some of the things I’ve read.”