Promising first day for Rizla Suzuki in Czech Republic

Loris Capirossi led the way for Rizla Suzuki on the first day of the Cardion ab Grand Prix Ceske republiky as he clocked a time of 1'58.000 to give him third place on the timesheets. Capirossi is still nursing the injury he sustained in Assen in June, but he appeared untroubled by the wound as he consistently improved his times around the newly re-surfaced 5,403m Czech circuit.

Chris Vermeulen continued with his good run of form - which has seen him take two podiums in the last two races. He was constantly in touch with the leaders in both sessions before finishing in sixth place with a time of 1´58.462.

Loris Capirossi - fifteenth

`I am really happy with today´s performance because after the first couple of laps this morning I was a bit worried, because we just hadn´t got the setting right. I think that was mostly down to the new surface and it was a bit dirty and made it very difficult to control the bike. I came into the box and we made some changes to the bike and by the end of this morning´s session the feeling was good. We made a lot more changes this afternoon and with the new setting I felt really good on the bike. My lap-time is not too bad, but I think we can improve on that, we have the power and I need to work on my rhythm a bit. One of the best things today is that I am nearly at 100% after the injury, my condition is great and this weekend I want to give the team something good because after recent races they really need it!´

Chris Vermeulen - sixth

`I really enjoy it here and it was great to get back on the bike because the last week or so I´ve started to get itchy feet. The bike worked well straight out of the crate and we used the base setting that we have had success with at the last couple of races. We are working on a few modifications and doing some longer runs on the tyres to test the durability on the new surface. It seems to be going really well and we have a couple more things to work on tomorrow. I´m quite looking forward to the weekend and just hope the weather stays good.´