Hopkins believes Ducati are beatable

Although the long back straight plays perfectly to the speed advantage that Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi enjoy, the Rizla Suzuki rider believes that he can take the fight to the GP7s in the tighter first section of the track.

But should the Ducatis build up an early lead, then he is doubtful about his chances of doing anything to get past them.

"I know I can overtake into the tight right at turn three so that's a place where I can get through," said Hopkins. "But the worry is if a Ducati gets a little lead then it can make a break with its top speed advantage on the straight. That'll be difficult.

"One thing I need to work on is my exit onto the back straight. Chris (Vermuelen) is really getting me there so I need get that sorted tomorrow."

Hopkins said the key to setting his fast time today at Shanghai was his corner speed and tyre edge grip through the first part of the race track.

"I knew it was going to be a track that would suit the 800, as Shanghai has some good flowing corners and we spend a lot of the time on the edge of the tyres and have to do quite a bit of late braking," he explained.

"At the moment I am just going from kerb to kerb and the mix of the bike and tyres makes it feel like I'm on rails

"We have made some improvements over the day and we still have a couple of little bits to sort out tomorrow. Competition is really close again and we need to find every tenth of a second we can and keep our heads down."

Stuart Shenton, Hopkins' crew chief added: "The long radius corners really suit John here. He's not spinning up so much and that really helps the time. The edge grip through there is impressive.

"John's top speed is also a little bit more than is indicated on the timing screens as he is holding the throttle open a little further into the corner than where the timing loop is positioned."