Rossi encouraged despite crash

The Fiat Yamaha rider finished the first session second on the timesheets, despite rivals Ducati showing impressive top speed along the long straight of the Italian track.

In the afternoon, with rain hitting the circuit, Rossi also shone, but his session came to an early stop when he made a riding mistake and fell down just as he looked set to move to the top of the times.

Rossi finished down in fourth.

"This weather isn't really what we expect in Mugello," admitted Rossi, looking for his sixth consecutive win at Mugello.

"I'm quite happy today however because this morning in the dry I was already fast, setting some good laptimes and finishing second. We still need to improve the setting a little bit but I think we're going in the right way.

"We tried some new tyres that we found during the Le Mans test and they weren't so bad, so hopefully we can improve things more tomorrow. I'm happy about this afternoon's session in the wet too because I was also very fast. I think if I hadn't crashed it would have been possible to have finished on top, so I'm sorry about that. It was my mistake.

"I arrived a little bit too fast at the braking and went down but I was lucky; I didn't hurt myself and the bike is not so bad. Anyway it was a good session because now we understand that we can fight with our tyre rivals also in the wet, if we choose the right tyre. Now let's hope for some sunshine tomorrow."

Rossi's teammate Colin Edwards was down in seventh in the afternoon after finishing in a lowly 16th position in the morning session, when the American failed to get into a good rhythm with his bike.

"We found something new with Michelin during the Le Mans test which we thought would work here and we basically dedicated the entire morning to it, but unfortunately it didn't work quite how we were hoping," he said.

"In a way it was lucky for us that it rained this afternoon because it meant that we didn't have to start digging into our dry tyre allocation and we won't be in too much trouble tomorrow.

"We know what we've got to do so I think we'll be okay. This afternoon was quite simply unbelievable, especially when I first went out. I was hydroplaning at 180mph coming over the top of the hill down the main straight which was quite scary.

"Anyway it was useful, especially after the problems we had in Le Mans and it gave us the chance to check the rain setting of the bike and try to work on a few issues. I think we made some improvements and now we just need to keep on working in that way each time we get a chance in the wet."