Toseland upbeat despite slow start

The Briton finished at the bottom of the times in the afternoon session after having crashed in the morning, when he was down in 16th out of 17 riders.

But the Tech 3 Yamaha rider reckons the situation is not as bad as it looks.

"It looks a lot worse on paper than it is and I'm still upbeat," said Toseland. "I'm bottom of the list but at the end I saw a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, so fingers crossed it will be dry tomorrow. The problem is we are struggling to find the set-up for the shorter bike.

"It is much easier to find with the longer bike but that one has a few issues. With the shorter bike it is the same problem as before, there is too much weight transition on that bike under braking and I've not got much feel from the rear tyre on the entry. The crash on the third lap this morning put me off a bit.

"That was my mistake. I just touched the white line going into that left-hander and it just lost traction as I got back onto the tarmac and down I went. Both of my arms are black and blue because the stones are quite big in the gravel. I went in backwards and dug my arms in a bit and it has really battered them."

Teammate Colin Edwards enjoyed a better day after finishing in third position in the afternoon session.

The American was also hindered by a crash in the afternoon.

"This morning I went out and I didn't have a lot of feeling from the front. I thought it was a small issue with grip so we played around with the bike and it didn't really get any better," Edwards said.

"The feeling I'm always looking for just wasn't there and I'm a front-end guy. I just couldn't get the front to gel with me.

"I tried a different front tyre this afternoon - a harder one - and that felt better but it is something that we never use. This place is so hard on front tyres and what we normally use race after race wouldn't have the durability, so Michelin have had to improvise a little bit and it was just a feeling that I'm not used to.

"I went out there and got going and did a couple of good laps and the next thing I crashed. I braked for the last corner and that was it.

"You know when you do something wrong because when you get in they're too hot and your eyes bulge out, you know you are not going to make it. But I didn't even do that. I just cruised into the corner like normal and I was down. I had zero warning."