Suzuki riders looking to push forward

Capirossi ended the day the fastest of the team's three riders at Motegi, in fifth position, the result leaving Capirossi feeling positive.

"It has not been too bad at the end of the day because we did struggle a bit this morning in the rain to begin with, but at the end of the session we found a good solution that we were happy with," said Capirossi.

"This afternoon we had the first opportunity to ride with slick tyres and even though the condition of the track is not 100% we managed to get in a whole hour in the dry and we tried many things on the bike."

Despite being fifth-fastest, Capirossi was not happy about the gap, two-thirds of a second slower than pacesetter Casey Stoner: "We made small steps every time we went out and although we are not so far from the front on positions we are quite far away on time, so we must keep working hard and try 100% to go better here."

Team manager Paul Denning was also happy with Capriossi's day, after struggling throughout the last round at Indianapolis.

"Loris had a horrible weekend at Indianapolis and we had some long discussions yesterday to make sure that we lifted ourselves back to where things should be - it's great to see him back in attacking style today and putting the GSV-R up amongst the fastest riders," confirmed Denning.

"There are still a large number of setting improvements we need to make, but the starting point from today is not too bad at all."

However, teammate Chris Vermeulen struggled for grip in the wet and suffered even more with his setup in dry conditions, dropping well down the order.

"In the wet this morning we struggled quite a lot to get rear grip with the bike and the guys worked really hard between the sessions to improve things, but by this afternoon it had dried out enough to use slick tyres and we had a similar problem with the bike in the fact that the setup wasn't exactly right.

"We've got some ideas and some important data from today so I am sure that we can come back much stronger tomorrow and be pushing a lot further forward."

His Japanese teammate Kousuke Akiyoshi had similar problems, a crash adding further to his woes. "I have had a few problems with the bike today and I had a crash as well which didn't help with getting the bike setup right," explained Akiyoshi.