De Puniet expects to maintain speed

The Frenchman, who has been able to improve his fitness in the summer break to finally fully recover from injuries he suffered earlier in the season, was pleased with how his Kawasaki bike felt on the opening day.

"I'm very happy to be here and on the bike after the long break," he said. "This morning was strange because some parts of the track were wet and some were dry but this afternoon the track was good and the temperature wasn't so high.

"We worked mainly on the tyres and suspension and, generally, I'm happy with my bike. I did a long run of maybe eight or nine laps, and my times were consistent and fast, but we need to improve things a little bit.

"I'm sure we will find some solutions this evening on how to get my lap times even better and maintain this standard during the practice tomorrow."

Teammate Anthony West had a more difficult day, ending up 15th overall in the standings.

"I haven't managed to find a good feeling on the bike today, for a number of reasons," he said.

"The track temperature today was not really what we were expecting it to be at Brno in August, and this meant we've had some rear traction problems that will hopefully disappear once the track warms up tomorrow.

"We've made some improvements to the set-up of the bike during the two hours of practice, and in the final ten minutes the feeling was definitely better, although we still have some work to do. Overall it was difficult to go fast today, but I'm confident that we'll be able to improve tomorrow.

"We need to continue refining our set-up and I need to perfect my lines around certain parts of the track, if we can achieve this then I know we can finish higher up the order than we were today."