Edwards feeling engine rule effects

Under the cost cutting rules introduced at the start of the season, each rider is only allowed to use five engines for the seven events from Brno to Valencia. For 2010, the allowance will be cut further, with only six engines to be used for each bike across the full season.

Edwards was sixth in today's session, but reported a lack of bottom end power which he ascribed to the change in engine specification required to make the power unit last for several events.

"My bike feels slow," he said. "I know we have the same gearing as last year but the bike is not reacting, it feels like there is no bottom end and you have to keep the RPM up and carry astronomical corner speeds.

"I guess it is the long life engines, we have lost some of the bottom end that Yamaha made such a good step on earlier this year."

He believes gear ratio changes can make up for the loss of power, though.

"We plan to shorten the gearing for tomorrow and I reckon I have half a second in three corners just from that," Edwards said.

The American lost two places in the final rush for fast times at the end of the hour, but was not bothered about falling back as he reckoned some of those ahead had given a false impression of their pace.

"I was sitting fourth for a long time and I know some of these guys just mess around the whole session and the catch onto somebody to do a hot lap at the end," he said.

His team-mate James Toseland was encouraged to end the afternoon in ninth place.

"This is one of my better Friday session this season," said the Briton. "We started with the Indianapolis set-up and just made some small changes.

"The bike is a little bit aggressive on the rear over the bumps so we are working to smooth that out. I got up to sixth at one point and then dropped to ninth but only 0.5s off fourth. I'm pleased, a good session for a Friday."