Hayden: No ill effects from crash

The American was third quickest today, despite falling at Turn 13 with 15 minutes to go. He was already riding with a chipped bone in his wrist following a Brno crash, but did not exacerbate his injury in the Indianapolis incident.

"At the start of the session I was feeling really good and I was going quite fast on a hard tyre," said Hayden. "When we put the soft tyre in I felt even better and maybe got a little too excited because that's when I made a mistake.

"I was off line a little but I didn't force it, I just let it go because it's only first practice but 'bam'! I was down immediately.

"It was a bummer because my suspension guy had come up with some settings that were working really good and I really liked the feel.

"At least I didn't do any more damage to the wrist - all I got was a friction burn on my arm from digging it in trying to save the wrist.

"It's nothing major though and after finding a good base setting today I'm looking forward to possibly trying the new forks tomorrow."

Hayden was 0.6 seconds slower than his Ducati team-mate Casey Stoner, who set the pace in practice.

"We made a good start but I'm sure everybody will work things out better tomorrow and close the gap," said Stoner.

"Having said that this is a good situation to be in on the first day and for the first time in a while we feel there is potential to improve.

"We tried the new front fork today that we tested in Brno and it felt good, although this is not the kind of circuit where you can really push so it's hard to say if it improved the package."