MotoGP news

Disappointing qualifying session for Stoner

What could become Stoner's championship weekend has turned out into a disappointing Grand Prix weekend so far. The Ducati rider didn't get much further than P9 in qualifying for Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix.

Speaking about his qualifying session Stoner said: "Today we couldn't get a good feeling with the bike, no matter what we did. I was frustrated because I think we could have improved my time with my second qualifying run but the change we'd made to the setting made braking difficult, so when I came into the last chicane the bike wouldn't go back a gear, so I destroyed the last corner and lost more than half a second.

"The tyres weren't so bad and to be honest the setting we had this morning was quite good, but as soon as we started the afternoon session that setting didn't seem to work, so we struggled to find a solution. We know we have to improve a little bit more and I think we will try another direction during warm-up. If we can improve a bit in the morning, starting from the third row shouldn't be a big problem. Normally we get goods start and with a few passes we can get to the front."

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