Current MotoGP point leader Casey Stoner once again proved that he is fast and good enough to take the MotoGP crown this 2007 season. During the recent practice test race for the upcoming 2007 Portuguese Grand Prix, the 21-year old Aussie rider dominated the race and clocked in with the fastest lap time of 1 minute and 37.950 seconds aboard his No. 27 Ducati Desmosedici GP7. Meanwhile, 7-time MotoGP champ Valentino Rossi followed Stoner and landed the 2nd place.

Stoner commented after the race:
"We’re reasonably happy with the way today went, we struggled a little bit this morning and also a little bit in the last part of this afternoon’s session but apart fro that we’re very happy with the settings we’ve got for this track, which is one of the most difficult circuits of the year with a lot bumps and some very technical corners. We’ve nearly done race distance on the tyres, so everything is thing going very well, we just need to try and improve the traction for tomorrow. If we can do that then we should be able to push to improve our lap times and also our pace for the race."

Valentino Rossi also commented after the race:
"Today I am quite happy because we’ve made some improvements to the new engine and it’s going well for us, plus the new tyres that we found at the last test are also working quite well. We have a few small problems to fix, but I was able to ride a lot better today; I was quite fast from the start and we did some good work to find the right setting. Also this afternoon Tamada used a qualifying tyre so in reality we were second fastest on race tyres and quite close to Stoner; this is a good result. The bike is not so bad and it feels like we’ve made a good step forward. At the moment we need to think about the second part of the race, because this is where we expect more problems, but tomorrow the condition of the asphalt should be improved so hopefully this will also help our tyre performance."

Just watch out for the upcoming qualifying race and see who’s gonna take the pole. Also, check out this blog for the result of the upcoming 2007 Portuguese Grand Prix.

Whoa! by the way, I almost forgot. Here is the result of the practice test.

1.      Casey Stoner      Ducati Marlboro Team     
2.     Valentino Rossi     Fiat Yamaha Team     
3.     Randy De Puniet     Kawasaki Racing Team     
4.     Colin Edwards     Fiat Yamaha Team     
5.     Carlos Checa     Honda LCR     
6.     John Hopkins     Rizla Suzuki MotoGP     
7.     Dani Pedrosa     Repsol Honda Team     
8.     Nicky Hayden     Repsol Honda Team     
9.     Shinya Nakano     Konica Minolta Honda     
10.     Marco Melandri     Gresini Honda     
11.     Loris Capirossi     Ducati Marlboro Team     
12.     Makoto Tamada     Tech 3 Yamaha     
13.     Chris Vermeulen     Rizla Suzuki MotoGP     
14.     Toni Elias     Gresini Honda     
15.     Anthony West     Kawasaki Racing Team     
16.     Alex Hofmann     Pramac D’Antin MotoGP     
17.     Sylvain Guintoli     Tech 3 Yamaha     
18.     Alex Barros     Pramac D’Antin MotoGP     
19.     Kurtis Roberts     Team Roberts