Honda buoyed by practice form

Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso took first and fourth places in today's rain-affected session, and with conditions expected to remain changeable all weekend, Pedrosa was very encouraged by the result.

"It feels great to be on top today and I'm pleased with how we handled a tricky practice session," he said.

" The conditions were continually changing and so we needed to make the best use of the track time to learn as much as we can.

"There are a few areas we can improve upon - such as the feeling from the bike when it's really wet - and we'll look at working on the settings for those conditions because the weather doesn't look so stable for the weekend and we could see more rain on Sunday.

"It nearly dried out fully towards the end of the session but we stayed on wet tyres for the whole time and I think this was useful because you can have this sort of situation in the race. We're in reasonable shape for the rest of the weekend and I hope I can be in this position at the end of Sunday afternoon."

Dovizioso reckoned he could have gone quicker had he pushed harder earlier in the session, but was delighted with his bike's handling in the wet.

"I'm satisfied with the job we did today," he said. "Of course we need to tune the set-up and improve the traction in wet conditions, but this was a good way to begin the last British Grand Prix at Donington.

"The practice started in very wet conditions and I had a good feeling on the bike from the beginning of the session so I'm pleased about that. The track had quite a reasonable level of grip and the pace I could set was good straight away.

"Conditions were changing all the time and in the last part of the session when the track was 90 per cent dry, I couldn't set the fastest lap that I was capable of because I waited for a couple of laps and didn't use the wet tyres to the maximum when they were new.

"So I'm confident for tomorrow and I think we have a decent chance of getting a good grid position here."