Kallio surprised by his competitiveness

Pramac Ducati's Mika Kallio said the strong start to his MotoGP rookie season had come as a surprise, after taking a fine seventh in opening practice at Losail

The Finn's performance today comes just a fortnight after he took an impressive sixth place in the qualifying simulation at Jerez.

"It was really good for us, seventh position was something better than we expected," Kallio told the official MotoGP website.

"I was thinking if we could be somewhere around the top ten that would be good, and now we are seventh."

Kallio was second-fastest amongst the Ducati riders in Qatar, beating factory rider Nicky Hayden and returning former race winner Sete Gibernau.

Now he hopes he can maintain his current pace through qualifying and Sunday's race.

"Of course we are happy but we know tomorrow everyone will improve and we also need to find something better with the bike's set-up," said Kallio.

"But anyway the feeling with the bike was not so bad. I rode with two bikes and tried some different settings, and I think we've found something for tomorrow.

"To be the second-fastest Ducati rider is good for me. In the winter time my feeling with the bike was good and all the time we were improving step by step. Now we are here we'll try to keep our pace like this. We'll see what happens in the race."

Kallio's team-mate Niccolo Canepa continued to struggle and was only 17th, but he remains confident that he has the potential to star in MotoGP once he has built up mileage and confidence.

"Time has gone so fast today, 45 minutes are really not enough for a completely new rider like me," said Canepa.

"We will need much more time to find the best feeling with the bike and to find the best method of work. The position I am in right now doesn't make me smile - tomorrow we will have to work even harder to improve."