Dani Pedrosa pleased with fitness so far in Mugello practice

The event is Pedrosa's first race back after the six-week lay-off that followed his Le Mans crash, when a tangle with Marco Simoncelli left the Spaniard with a fractured collarbone.

He was seventh quickest in the dry morning session as he worked his way back up to speed.

"It's good to be back on the bike again and regain some feeling," Pedrosa said. "I have pain, of course, especially in hard braking and in the right hand corners is where I suffer more, but it's normal. Considering that it's been one month and a half without touching the bike, I did not do so bad this morning.

"I know that the race is going to be very tough and it will hurt because there are 23 laps and this circuit is physically very demanding, with constant changes of direction, but we have the whole day tomorrow to work and I hope I can get a more or less good grid position in qualifying.

"The pain will increase with the effort, but I will try to prepare myself between practices with some treatment, have a good rest and make the most of the laps I can do tomorrow, I remain positive."

Pedrosa felt the mileage saved by sitting out the wet afternoon session will actually help him this weekend.

"I was lucky this afternoon with the drops of rain as it meant I could rest a little more," he said. "I know tomorrow will be tougher because everybody will improve their lap times and I will need to make a bigger effort."

Pedrosa's championship-leading team-mate Casey Stoner also has a physical issue to deal with this weekend, as he suffered from neck pain in practice due to the after-effects of his Assen practice crash.

"This morning we had a pretty tough session, my injuries from Assen aren't completely healed and it seems there is a slightly deeper problem with my neck," said Stoner, who was still second fastest.

"On the main straights the wind was knocking my head around quite a lot and we struggled with this and weren't able to get enough time on track to find something decent with set up or complete as many laps as I would have liked to."