"It felt good to be heading to Jerez, a circuit I have some experience on. It was good not having to learn a circuit at the same time as trying to set up the bike.

"We made good progress on Friday, finishing 6th in the first qualifying. The track was quite slippery because of the new surface, a lot of building work was also going on which created a lot of dust. The team are really good at helping me to arrive as quickly as possible to a good race set up with the suspension and tyres. The guys have a lot of experience with set up on Aprilias and I would be really lost without them.

"Saturday morning we were again making good progress with set up, trying various tyres for the race. We still had problems with lack of grip, but this was improving.

"We also had some brake problems and in the second qualifying I crashed when I arrived at the last corner and had no stopping power. It was the first lap out and we think there wasn't enough heat built up in the carbon brakes. Luckily there was no damage and with only 7 minutes of qualifying left, I had to stay out there. Thankfully I managed to improve my time and stay on the second row.

"Sunday morning warm up went well and I was feeling confident of a good finish in the race.  I got a good start in the race and was second going into the first turn, but some of the other riders were pretty keen to stay near the front and with my rear tyre sliding quite a lot, I had to let them go while I waited for the tyre to get more grip.

"Unfortunately I had to wait a long time, with the tyre only feeling better on about lap 15. By then it was too late to try to catch the front riders.

"I am very pleased to have my first finish and points in the 250 GP class, however, I will never be really happy with my result until I am on the podium and I'm sure that if I work hard enough I can make this happen."

After Jerez the Stoner clan ran in to some problems........

The motor-home lost it's lights, brakes and steering due to an electrical failure; to make matters worse they were descending a steep hill!  They made it to the bottom okay but were stranded 3 hours out of Jerez, with a 2,500km journey in front of them. 

Luckily Alex Debon turned up to lend a hand along with the Spanish police.  They figured out a way around the problem by resorting to hot-wiring the vehicle, but did not get underway until 10am on the Monday.  As a result they had to drive non-stop through to Mugello to arrive in time for testing.

But bad luck on the road had also befell some of Stoner's pit crew!  They had been involved in a car accident and were a bit beaten up, with one member scoring a few broken ribs. 

After all the dramas getting to Mugello, Wednesday turned out to be too wet to do any useful testing so they decided to wait for Thursday. 

Thursday was also wet, but Casey did laps on the 250 to get some more wet experience as he had only ridden the bike briefly before in wet conditions, a morning warm up at Suzuka.

"It was very useful testing but I'm a bit disappointed that I could not learn the track in the dry, that would save a lot of time when we get to Mugello for the race." said Casey on the Mugello tests.

On Le Mans this weekend, "Unfortunately I have never been there, the only way I have ridden it is on PlayStation, I will have to learn the real circuit in Friday morning practice."