Qatar MotoGP: Casey Stoner surprised at advantage

Casey Stoner admitted he didn’t expect to have such a commanding advantage after he ended first free practice for Sunday’s Qatar MotoGP race over 0.6s faster than his closest rival.

Stoner’s brilliant form on the new Repsol Honda RC212V machine continued in tonight’s windswept 45-minute session, the Aussie posting a best time of 1.55.752.

He was the only rider to break into the 1.55s and he finished a massive 0.610s clear of factory Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa.

And the 2007 world champion, who topped the timesheets in the final winter test at the Losail International Circuit earlier this week, said: “I was surprised everybody else wasn’t a little bit faster. The track for me feels very similar to the test.

“I more or less did the same times what I was doing in testing and I did everything with the hard tyre tonight. It feels good.

“We’re more or less doing the same lap times with the hard tyre and the soft, so we made some improvements in testing, we’ve just sort of continued that from there to tonight.

“The track condition’s quite good. We had the 125s and Moto2 clean the track a little bit for us before we got out. It’s only the wind that’s a little bit worse.”

Stoner starts the new season as a red-hot pre-season favourite after a series if impressive winter testing performances since his transfer from Ducati at the end of last season.

But he once again played down his title prospects heading into Sunday’s 22-lap clash in Doha.

Assessing his blistering speed he said: “I think it was better in 2007 when nobody knew who I was. It was a little bit more relaxing but we’ve got to concentrate.

Everything’s gone fantastic so far, but we need to be realistic and keep focused and just try to make the bike work as well as we can for every circuit, not just one or two. I feel that we can run almost every track without changing the set-up almost at all and that’s a really good feeling.

“So we can go to other circuits with a little bit more confidence. The pressure is on me from me. I’ve had the pressure from other people enough in my life and basically I don’t care what they think.

“If I don’t win the championship I’m going to be pretty pissed with myself. I think every year we’ve gone in with a real chance and I’ve made mistakes and things haven’t gone well.

“We’re just going to do the best we can and make sure that we reduce those mistakes and try and come away with more points than the others.”