Nakano satisfied with improvement

Rider Shinya Nakano was delayed by an engine issue in Friday's first session and then crashed in the afternoon, meaning that the team had very little data about their preferred settings before qualifying.

"After a difficult day yesterday we have made a significant improvement today," said Montiron.

"Thanks to the time we lost yesterday, we had a lot of work to do and just in the final part of qualifying we found some good settings and I think Shinya was able to push a little bit harder with the softer qualifying tyre. Overall, he did a good job for us today.

Nakano agreed that the team had made a sudden step forward during qualifying.

"We changed so much in the morning, adjusting the suspension settings, springs and spring rates as well as the tyres," he said.

"Try as we might we couldn't get a very good feeling from the bike until this afternoon when things began to feel more positive. It's not perfect, but it has improved a lot.

"Tomorrow we will change a few things for morning warm-up, not great big steps, but hopefully we can find some small improvements.

"I still can't carry the corner speed I want which is our problem at the moment, but we will be trying 100% and I'm hoping to get into the top 10 at least by the chequered flag."

Technical director Giulio Bernardelle remained concerned that the team are a step behind their rivals though, and suspects that their Michelin tyres may be less competitive in the race.

"One of the problems is the difference in temperature between the morning and afternoon sessions, so that basically a tyre that works well in the morning maybe doesn't work so well in the afternoon," he said.

"I think this is a common problem for the Michelin riders. I think we are seeing Michelin having the better qualifying tyres but maybe with Bridgestone having the edge with the race rubber at this circuit. Come the race we shall see.

"We have some small adjustments to do tomorrow morning and we have to finalise our rear tyre choice. This means we have a lot to do in just 20 minutes."