Suzuki riders thrilled by practice pace

John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen ended the day third and seventh respectively in the combined times, with Hopkins having been second only to Valentino Rossi in the afternoon.

"It felt really good here today straight from the start," Hopkins said.

"As with every race so far this year the Suzuki and the Bridgestone tyres are working very well and Stuart (Shenton, chief technician) has done a great job to set the bike up from the start, so I am fortunate enough to go out and be able to work on getting the right tyres for the race."

Vermeulen is particularly optmistic about their race pace after a successful long run in the sweltering second session.

"All day we have made progress with the bike, the tyres and the settings," he said.

"The bike feels really comfortable and I did quite a long run this afternoon and set my best time with a front tyre that had done more than race distance - and the grip still felt good.

"We have a couple of areas to improve on, but the guys are working hard on those and I'm sure come tomorrow we'll go even faster."

Team manager Paul Denning shared his riders' confidence.

"It has been a great day's work today by the riders and their crews," he said.

"The track was very hot this afternoon which possibly reduced the grip for everyone, but we managed to get in a lot of fast laps - despite the conditions.

"It's nice to be at yet another race-track where the GSV-R appears to be immediately competitive. It makes everyone's job a lot easier when you are looking for tenths of a second rather than bigger gaps."