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Vermeulen: The bike is in great shape |
2008 Kawasaki rider Hopkins heads into the 18th and final round with a four point lead over Vermeulen, while Honda Gresini's Marco Melandri is only one point in front of Hopkins.
Melandri was fourth fastest during Friday practice, with Vermeulen fifth and Hopkins tenth.
"The team has done a good job today and have worked really hard. The bike is in great shape and we have done a lot of laps with the same tyres and the durability of the race rubber looks very good," said the Australian. "There are some areas we need to work on tomorrow to find that extra half-a-second to get us up the front. We'll try our best and see how we go, but I'm feeling fairly confident that we will be up there come Sunday!"
"Position wise we aren't too satisfied with today's result, but the progress we have made over the day has been quite a big step," stated Hopkins, who lapped just 0.179secs slower than Vermeulen. "Everybody is so close at the moment and a couple of tenths would put us in the top-five. There are few things we need to look at overnight. I have a couple of riding techniques I need to check out and we have a few things to work on with the mechanics which should help us for the rest of the weekend. The Bridgestones seem to be working really well and we will give them a thorough test for durability tomorrow. I need to qualify well tomorrow so I can be up the front from the start of Sunday's race and stay there for my last race with Suzuki."
