Roberts pleased with Kurtis's contribution

Kurtis is riding brother Kenny Jr's spare bike after the team decided the lack of a second rider was leaving them critically short of feedback on their unique KR chassis.

"As I was saying from mid-season last year, we've needed two riders, but for some reason we were prohibited, and we're paying for that now," said Kenny Jr.

"With Kurtis on the second bike, right away he was able to help, so I'm only having to work 50 percent as hard and we're getting double the input.

"In the rain when I was on soft tyres, Kurtis actually passed me and took off, and was doing quite good times compared to the other Hondas. So he's able to give good feedback.

"Our situation is a reflection of the tyre rule and not having enough feedback to the engineers, so it's good to have Kurtis here."

Team manager Chuck Aksland agreed that Kurtis was making a major contribution to the squad.

"I think probably this weekend, even with the bad weather, we've probably learned more than we have in all the races combined. Kurtis is adding another voice to the debriefs, pretty much matching Kenny's comments," Aksland said.

"The object is to try and make the bike better. We've always said we need two riders to back things up and give us a better perspective, and from that side it's really helped.

"Kurtis is here for two races. Then after each race we need to analyse where we are, and make decisions from race to race. To continue running two riders, engine mileage is the problem.

"But we have to thank Honda for giving us the chance to do this, even though it's not ideal working round a two-rider programme with equipment for one rider."

Kurtis, who normally races in the AMA Superbike series in America, said he was still acclimatising to being back in MotoGP, a year and a half after his last appearance for the family team.

"It's been a strange weekend to come back, just because the weather is changing so much," he said.

"It's kind of hard to get used to everything with it dry and wet. Maybe after three days of this it'll be easier, because we will have been through all the weather scenarios we could with this bike.

"But it's been fun, and interesting. And it's moving forward, I think, though it's hard just to jump onto something like this and be right up front. It's not like a Superbike. I think if we'd been out this session on the right tyres at the right time we might have been further up the field.

"At the same time, you can't put too much pressure on when it's your first race back, on a Honda-powered 800 you've never ridden before. My last ride was at the end of 2005 on the five-cylinder 990 Proton.

"This bike is a lot different - more than I expected. It doesn't have nearly the torque that the old bikes did. It feels like a 250 almost, because you're carrying so much corner speed. It's something to get used to for me."