De Puniet relieved to escape injury

The Kawasaki rider suffered a high-side on only his second lap of the day, and initially feared that he had broken his right heel. In the event he sustained nothing worse than soreness, and was able to take 12th place in the afternoon.

"I had a bad crash in my second lap this morning and I hurt my right heel," said de Puniet.

"It was so painful and I thought I would probably have broken it but it wasn't broken. I have been lucky! There are no excuses; I made a mistake.

"I tried to make up the time in the afternoon and we went through slight changes in the set up and also a couple of tyres with positive results. I did 22 laps with the same tyre, and set my best lap on the last one. We will go through it again tomorrow, but anyway, it is quite promising.

"(Casey) Stoner was so fast today but all others are quite close. I struggle a bit entering the corners so, apart from the tyres, the plan for tomorrow is to work on the balance of the bike."

De Puniet's teammate Olivier Jacque was seventh quickest in the morning and then improved to sixth in the second session.

"The bike is more efficient now and both sessions have been quite significant," Jacque said.

"I felt comfortable riding the bike and my lap times improved in every run I did.

"The set-up we found in Jerez is working well here. The engine is the same one but with the new mapping it seems to be more powerful."