But given the new track surface, and midday rain, the Ducati Marlboro rider was 'pretty happy' with his performance.
"I waited a little bit before I went out this afternoon because we wanted quality laps, not quantity - there's no point destroying a set of tyres when the track's not right," explained the Australian. "It seems like there's been a lot of races where we've had to contend with wet practices this year. Today was also quite difficult because the new track surface isn't so good, it's much bumpier and more slippery than in the past and there's a lot of dust and dirt on it, so we can't seem to find a lot of grip, though maybe it'll get better with some more laps. Anyway, we're pretty happy with the bike set-up, we've not changed so much since this morning, and we've almost done race distance on the tyres because this afternoon we used the same tyres, so things are looking good and we're quite happy with the day."
Team-mate
Loris Capirossi struggled with bike set-up and ended the day 13th.
"The new surface isn't very grippy in some areas and in others it's very bumpy," said the Italian. "But the big thing for me today was that my bike was moving around a lot and we aren't sure why, we aren't sure whether it's coming from the engine set-up or the chassis set-up. Anyway, today is the first day so we've got some time to work out how to improve the bike, so long as we have some good dry track time tomorrow. This afternoon we didn't go out at the start the session because it was neither wet nor dry, so we wanted to save my tyres. We are looking forward to improving tomorrow."
