De Angelis thrilled with fourth

The Gresini Honda rider will line up fourth on the grid for Sunday's race and says he plans to push as much as possible tomorrow.

"I would have preferred to start on the front row but this is still a wonderful day for me - so far it has been a perfect weekend," said de Angelis. "It is never easy to get near the pace of the front three but I'm enjoying riding my bike here and we have never been this close, so I'm delighted.

"I'll be going on the attack in the race because this is a big opportunity for me to score a top result and to move up in the championship, with there being a small gap to the guys currently ahead of me. I have always believed I have the talent but it was good to show everybody today that when things are right I can be there."

The Gresini team had both bikes qualify in the top seven, despite Toni Elias falling in the closing minutes of the session.

"We improved from the morning to the afternoon but I'm still not as comfortable as I would like to be with the set-up," said Elias. "At the end I crashed, purely because I was pushing too hard to try and stay with Valentino [Rossi].

"Having said that, seventh on the grid isn't bad. The race will be pretty tough tomorrow so the target is just to get a good start and follow the group ahead of me."