Denning encouraged by close times

John Hopkins took third in the morning session, and although he fell to ninth later on, he was within 0.279 seconds of third.

His teammate Chris Vermeulen was a further 0.038 seconds behind in 11th.

"Apart from the first two riders on the timesheets it's ever so close for the rest of the field here at Sachsenring," Denning said.

"Both John and Chris are extremely near to a top three position and both of them have improved this afternoon - especially Chris. He has halved the gap to the front riders today and I'm sure there is more to come from him as well.

"This is a track where minute detail makes a big difference to positions, so both crews will be working hard tonight to fine tune everything to give John and Chris every opportunity to improve tomorrow."

Vermeulen said his improvement was down to set-up changes during the lunch break.

"We had a couple of set-up problems that we had to overcome this morning and few things with the chassis and electronics that needed sorting," he said. "The crew did a great job with that and the difference to this afternoon was a lot better.

"We've got a couple of choices in tyres already for the race and if we can continue to improve our all round package over the weekend, like we have done today, I'm sure we will competitive in the race."

Hopkins, who announced this weekend that he will leave Suzuki for Kawasaki next season, praised his crew for their swift efforts after he crashed early in the afternoon.

He was able to climb out of the gravel and return to the garage, and the mechanics repaired the bike in time for him to rejoin later in the session.

"I made a small mistake and crashed this afternoon, but I got straight back to the pits and my guys did a great job rebuilding the bike so I could get back out quickly - so well done to them," Hopkins said.

"I've got a bit of work to do tomorrow as I need to improve my lines, so that will be one of my goals."