Suzuki duo hopeful of strong race

Capirossi qualified sixth, and was in with a chance of a front-row start, nearly crashing on his final lap, while teammate Vermeulen was two places further back, by far his best qualifying result of the season.

"I am quite happy today because this is the first time that we have had a good qualifying," said Capirossi. "We have worked hard to get the bike's settings right and it is now working well on race tyres.

"We still have a couple of options for which tyres to use tomorrow and we will decide on that in the morning. The qualifying and race tyres worked well and we have a good rhythm with the race package, and it will be good to start nearer the front."

Vermeulen was happy with his performance, having struggled for pace in qualifying in recent events: "Things have been a lot better today. The tests after the last few events have really paid off and Bridgestone has helped out and brought us some new rubber that is a lot more competitive - so I am really thankful to them for that.

"My crew have worked really hard this week and we have had to overcome some major issues in some of the sessions - the guys have worked their hearts out! It has definitely paid off as we were consistently inside the top-five during the qualifying session on race tyres, and on the qualifiers it is a lot better to be right up there.