Capirossi upbeat about Suzuki's form

The veteran Italian, who had to settle for a distant eighth place in the season-opening race in Qatar, posted the ninth fastest time in this afternoon's session, eight tenths behind pace-setter Jorge Lorenzo.

Despite his low-key showing, Capirossi reckons the team are making progress with the understanding of their bike and is positive about his chances.

"It has not been too bad today," said Capirossi. "We have started the weekend quite well and we have tried some different things on the bike from what we used at the test here last month.

"From my side I think we are really now starting to understand what we need to do and for sure we have to improve tomorrow - but already we are not too far from the first guy.

"We have to keep working in a positive way, but we need to improve the power delivery and also work hard with Bridgestone to try to give us a little more grip."

Teammate Chris Vermeulen, whose team are running an hybrid bike with parts from the 2007 unit, was also pleased with his first day of work despite finishing down in 12th.

"It's been a good start here today," he said. "We've changed some parts on the bike since Qatar, with some new stuff from Suzuki and also the 2007 aerodynamics. It all seems to be working quite well and it has made the bike very stable in the corners. For me it was very different riding with that bodywork on as it was the first time I'd used it in over four months.

"It was strange to get on at first, but it's working well and we are consistently quicker than we were at the test here. In the last run I did 29 laps on the same front tyre and it performed well, so we seem to have good durability from the race tyres.

"Tomorrow we will work on getting a bit more speed out of the bike and hopefully we'll be alright for the race."