Casey Stoner completed his comeback from illness today by taking pole position for the Australian GP by just 0.050 seconds.
With dry a cool track conditions the Ducati team admitted they wern’t ideal, but the Aussie rider showed his pace and fended off the challenge of Rossi.
“It's a great feeling to be on pole position again, especially here at my home race. I've had great support from the fans here this weekend and it is nice to give them something to cheer for today, although the real work starts tomorrow.” said Stoner
Despite posting the fastest time, Stoner was realistic, admitting they are still struggling for the perfect set-up.
“To be honest we're still struggling for traction, which seems to be the same problem for everybody, but we have worked hard this season to create a bike that turns well – trying things like going back to the aluminium swingarm – and it has paid off so far this weekend. This is a great track to ride at when you're comfortable with your bike and even though we still don't have a perfect set-up I still felt confident enough to push it at the end and it was good fun.”
Looking forward to the race he went on to reveal that they would be running a new look paint-job tomorrow, “Now I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, especially because we're going to be running a special livery and I'd really like to thank our sponsors for that.”
