De Puniet worried by engine performance

The Frenchman said the team had switched to a less powerful engine to ensure reliability after de Puniet's failure in the Portuguese Grand Prix.

"We did a good job since the beginning of the weekend. I feel comfortable with the bike and with the race tyres," de Puniet told the official MotoGP website.

"The negative point is about the engine, because after the problem in Estoril the team would like to go for security about the engine, so we have less power than Estoril and Misano.

"For the race I think it will be difficult to overtake some riders. I hope to have a small improvement for the race, because when I'm alone it's okay, but for overtaking riders it's difficult."

His teammate West's sixth place is his best MotoGP qualifying position yet. The Australian had only been 18th in final practice, but put in a very fast lap early in qualifying and was only edged back to sixth when the rest of the field had completed their flying laps.

"This morning I was just testing tyres for the race, so I wasn't really pushing for a fast lap, just kept making a heap of laps on race tyres," West said.

"I thought these guys would go faster in the end because I put my qualifiers in early, so for the last few laps I was just riding around on the race tyres because I'd used up all my qualifiers.

"I kept looking at the big tower with your position on it, I kept looking at it every lap and thought 'shit, I'm still fifth' and I couldn't believe it. I'm sixth now, second row, so I'm really happy and I'm looking forward to the race tomorrow."

He is optimistic about the race, as he believes that the chatter problems that have hampered him in recent GPs have now been cured.

"The last few races it's been a real struggle with the set-up and I've been disappointed with how things have gone, but I actually feel quite comfortable riding the bike here," West said. "We don't have the same problems that we've had at the other tracks. I think it could be a good race."

West's only concern in qualifying was the extremely hot weather, which he hopes will ease before the race.

"It's terrible on the bike. You sweat before you put your leathers on and you're already wet before you go out on the bike, so it's making it really, really hard," he said.

"The track temperaure's really hot. Hopefully it's not this hot tomorrow, because a whole race like this is going to be really, really difficult."