Suzuki duo confident they can bounce back

The pair failed to get inside the top ten on the first day of the three day test, having felt beforehand they would quickly get up to speed despite missing the last test at the Spanish track in November.

But despite the difficulties, both riders think that they know what is needed to find the missing pace.

Capirossi said: "It was not an easy day for us. We worked a lot on setting up the bike and we found some good solutions at the end of the day. We will continue to work on things tomorrow and we are really hoping for good weather so we can continue with what we have found today.

"We have some ideas to modify the bike. It is harder than we expected here at the moment, but we think we have a way to go to get out of this situation as quick as possible."

Vermeulen added: "As Loris says, it was a difficult day today with the new bike. We were one of the only teams not to come here in November and that showed. We've had some good points out of the new bike and also some tricky areas, and we have worked on those here. It seems that we are struggling most on the edge grip, we can't really get the grip we want and then apply the power.

"We made some big steps this afternoon and halved the gap from where we were this morning, now we just need to find the other half on a race-tyre. Hopefully tomorrow will be dry and the forecast is wrong so we can get another day's full testing in - because we really need it."