"That's such a hard thing to ride," Burnett says, as we watch
Marco Melandri rocking through on the Marlboro Ducati. It's all revs, drama, noise, and the thing almost pitches Melandri out of the seat as he nicks up through the 'box.
Is that the reason why there is only one quick Ducati out of the four on the grid, that the desmo V4 is such a beast to ride that only a hardcase like
Casey Stoner can tame it?
In contrast the Repsol Hondas and the Yamahas look as steady and graceful as clippers on a calm sea - and it shows in their lap times.
Dani Pedrosa goes quickest in this session on his RC212V,
Colin Edwards takes the Tech 3 Yamaha into second, and
Nicky Hayden is third fastest on the other Repsol machine.
But we're worried about Burnett's man
James Toseland. We don't see his Tech 3 bike often enough - the drugs aren't working yet and the chest infection that's plaguing him this weekend is slowing his normally prodigious work rate. Burnett punts the scooter back to the pitbox and comes back to report: "He's just not his normal self."
John Waddingham, Toseland's motorhome driver, is with us on his mountain bike, wearing a blue and yellow Tech 3 shirt. "Get down, 'Wadder', James will see that," Burnett pleads. Anything that could distract a rider's focus for just a sliver of a second is bad news.
Late in the session Edwards is running under Pedrosa's times on the first two sectors of the track and looks like he might go fastest, but in the end he loses out by 65 hundredths of a second.
"Colin hasn't got enough speed through the two fast right-handers at the end," Burnett says. "It's not a problem with him or the bike itself, it's just the way he's got it set up for those two corners."
Burnett is a mentor to Toseland as well as a manager, and it's fascinating to get insight like this from a guy who's competed in grands prix and World Superbike competition, and won an Isle of Man TT race.
