The Australian 💮bounced back from two tough rounds to take his first front row✃ qualifying performance of the season on Saturday, and is a previous Shanghai winner in both the wet (2005) and dry (2007).

"First of all I want to say a big thank you to the team," said the Ducati Marlboro rider, who lapped ✱0.452secs from pole sitter Colin Edwards but less than one tenth behind fellow Bridgestone rider Valentino Rossi. "We had a great result in Qatar and we knew Jerez and Estoril w🉐ould be tough but we didn't realise how tough. Despite that nobody lost their head, everybody has stayed calm and together and this is the sign of a great team.

"It has meant that we have been able to come here with a clear focus, without panicking and making drastic changes to the bike," he claimed. "We found a good base setting for this track yesterday, with much improved ওfront feeling, and today we were able to work on finding better grip on the rear. It's still not perfect but the lap times are good and it feels great to know we're competitive again.

"Also, I want to say thanks to Bridgestone because they came up with a really competꦕitive qualifying tyre and it allowed us to get on the front row for the first time this season. We're all waiting to see what the weather will do but I won here in the wet in 250 back in 2005 and I won in the dry last year in MotoGP so we certainly have nothing to fear," said a confident Casey.

Team-mate Marco Melandri enjoyed something of a breakthrough qualifying, during which the Italian was as high as fourth place on race tyres before dropping to twelfth ▨with one-lap rubber - still his best qualifying position of the year.

"Finally I can ꩲsay I am happy!" said Marco, yet to take a top ten finish in 2008. "After three sessions when for one reason or another we couldn't work properly, this afternoon everything clicked. We've worked well, made some important modifications to the weight distribution to re𝓰duce spinning and that's allowed me to ride more comfortably.

"On qualifiers we've strugg﷽led a bit but the main thing is race pace. I don't want to make any predictions for tomorrow, about the weather or anything else, we'll just have to wait and see if we can continue this progression in the race. That's the way it should be - the team have always kept believing, remained optimistic and now we hope we can turn that into a result," he added.