Casey Stoner: "I expected to be faster"

Casey Stoner admitted he expected to be slightly faster during his second test appearance on board Honda’s new RC213V 1000cc MotoGP bike at the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic yesterday.

The Australian did top the timesheets with a best lap of 1.56.168 to edge out Jorge Lorenzo by just 0.085s after the reigning world champion made an impressive debut on Yamaha’s new 2012 1000cc bike.

But Stoner said he thought it was going to be possible to break into the high 1.55 bracket, even though his fastest time was a second quicker than his best pace set on his way to victory in the Brno race on Sunday.

Stoner, who has won six out of 11 races so far in 2011, said: “I was definitely expecting to get into the 55s. But we had that many different things to test that by the end of the day I was just tired. We’d tested so many different things and had to push on things that didn’t feel very comfortable just to get some feedback. I did expect to go a little bit faster though.”

After making his RC213V debut in Jerez back in May, HRC rolled out a modified chassis for the Brno test. But the latest specification created a chatter problem.
Stoner added: “They saw on the data after Jerez we had a couple of issues and they’ve tried to come up with a solution but maybe we have created some other problems. Unfortunately we didn’t have the Jerez chassis here to try and it would have been good to confirm with that one. We found out some things with the chassis that we can improve. It has a few good points but some points we need to focus on.”

There’s no doubt thought Stoner is relishing the prospect of racing the 1000cc bike next season as he raved once again about the performance potential of the more powerful motor.

He said: “The engine for me is fantastic. With the 1000 you have a lot of grunt and a lot of acceleration and most of the time too much. I can’t complain so much with the engine but we can improve a lot with the engine braking system and also with the chassis.”

He also denied the immediate competitive level of the new Yamaha had come as a big surprise and he added: “They know how to make a bike and their 800 is just as good as ours, especially in a circuit like this and with a bit more grunt there’s only so much you can use. That’s where the lap time was made today. With the 800 we might have been doing 56.8 or 56.6 but with the 1000 it is easier to go faster purely because you make the time up on the straight.”