De Puniet targets 'best ever' race

The French rider, who is Kawasaki's sole representative this weekend after Olivier Jacque's practice crash, qualified seventh at Shanghai.

"It has been a really positive day," said de Puniet. "Yesterday, we decided the plan would be to focus on refining the set-up and doing a good qualifying session and I feel we've done that almost perfectly.

"During this morning's session we worked on the front and rear suspension in order to get the bike to turn better and to improve the stability. The bike improved a lot with the little adjustments we made."

He believes that some issues with his brakes at the end of qualifying cost him an even better starting position.

"Even though I improved my lap time with the first set I used, I had a problem with the brakes with the second and third sets," said de Puniet.

"Without that problem, I am sure I would have been on the second row but still, I am really excited about tomorrow's race as I am feeling good and the bike is now working perfectly.

"Getting my best MotoGP result is possible; I just need to get a good start."

De Puniet also revealed that he received some inadvertent tuition from Valentino Rossi during qualifying.

"At the beginning of the qualifying session, I was able to follow Rossi for a few laps without any problem," he said. "I learnt some things from his riding style and lines, which I am confident will help me tomorrow."

Team boss Ichiro Yoda shared his rider's optimism, and agreed that he could have qualified even higher.

"It was a pity that Randy missed the second row, or even the first one, but we are really happy about how things went today," Yoda said.

"He improved in every session and so has the bike, so it has been almost perfect. We are really satisfied with the improvements that we've made for this race, which have proved we are going in the right direction.

"The engine's performance is very good and we have a good top speed, while with the new rear suspension the agility and stability of the bike has improved a lot. We must continue this way for the next races.

"Our target for Randy in tomorrow's race is to finish in at least eighth position, but he says he feels he can finish sixth. We all hope he's right and, given a good start and some slipstreaming, I also think it is possible."