Vermeulen surprised by his pace

The Australian was only 13th fastest in the first session at the Italian track, but teammate John Hopkins was near the top of the timesheets in both sessions, and Vermeulen was also fast in the wet second session.

Despite his lowly position in the dry in the morning, Vermeulen was still pleased wit the performance of his bike.

"I thought I would struggle a bit here, but I went quite quickly in this morning's session," he said. "I'm pretty confident for the rest of the weekend."

The Le Mans race winner added that he was pleased to get some wet running in the afternoon, as the team still had areas that they need to improve on for wet conditions.

"It was good that it was wet this afternoon," he said. "Although the bike worked well in Le Mans it wasn't perfect and we had a few things we needed to try."

Hopkins was happy with his bike in all conditions as well, and the 24-year-old said that he doesn't mind what the weather is like for the rest of the weekend.

"Whatever the weather is, we're going to be ready and I've got a really good feeling about Mugello," he said.

"We were comfortable and the tyre that I used showed good consistency and grip. It worked out pretty well."