Glitch slows Capirossi's progress

Having gone fifth fastest in practice, the veteran Italian eventually qualified ninth after he was forced to switch, too late as it turned out, to his back-up bike.

"Today has been a bit strange for us because this morning we tried to sort out a good engine delivery and setting, and we found a good combination," said Capirossi. "We started this afternoon with the same bike but we had an electronic problem on the first couple of times I went out.

"We tried to fix it and on the third run it seemed ok, but when I put in a softer tyre to try to get a better lap-time the bike just didn't work right and I had a lot of vibration.

"I went into the pits to try and get a better time on the second bike, but it was too late and I missed out on a higher position. Our target was for a minimum second row start and we had the potential for that, but we lost something in the afternoon," he added.

"We need to find out what happened because it is not easy to understand. The new engine is certainly better and I thank Suzuki for that.

"Our target for tomorrow is really high, if we can find out what caused the problems today!"

Capirossi's team-mate Chris Vermeulen ended the day encouraged despite only qualifying 11th, when he finally found a rhythm after a troubled two days at Brno.

"Today was a lot better - especially in qualifying," he said. "We have struggled with rear grip here this weekend and the engineers made some big changes this afternoon.

"One of the directions we took was very good and it got some weight on to the rear and gave me a lot more grip. It was the most comfortable I've been on the bike for the last three or four races, so that was a really good job by everyone to sort that out.

"Today we have gone the fastest we have ever done on race tyres at Brno, so that is also a good sign.

"The race will still be tough from the third row, but we're going to try something else in warm-up tomorrow morning in the same direction and see if we can help the bike a bit more."