Checa puts Ducati up front.

Ducati Marlboro rider Carlos Checa featured strongly in the opening day of free practice at the Sachsenring, ending the day fourth fastest just 0.246secs from the top.

In the final hour of practice, held in hot ambient temperatures of 32?C, Checa was second fastest for most of the session on his way to an eventual third at the flag, but was placed behind Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden on combined times after the American went set his best time in the morning hour. Nevertheless, it was a positive performance after recent dry track troubles.

"I am very happy with all our work today," said Carlos, "we tested the bike set-up in a lot of different way to make me feel more comfortable. Of course we have to keep working because maybe it will rain tomorrow. If it is wet then we should not be too bad.

"Certainly in the dry the Ducati is working quite well here, as are our tyres, so the combination is good compared to our rivals. I feel more comfortable in the slower areas, but set-up is always a compromise here."

Team-mate Loris Capirossi added to the optimism by lapping within 0.6secs of Barros, even though that was only good enough for eleventh.

"We are OK at the moment," said Capirossi. "This morning I did not like the set-up so much, but we changed the settings and it is a lot better now. Bridgestone brought a lot of new tyres and I tried one which is totally different from the ones we have used in the past.

"It worked really well at this track so tomorrow I hope it will not rain, so we can continue fine-tuning on the current set-up. I am happy with my rhythm even if I am 11th, because I am only three tenths from the second rider. I did not exploit the last minutes of the last session as I had a small problem with my bike. Despite this, I am still quite confident," he concluded.

"Bridgestone brought some new tyre specifications and they seem to work very well here," said Ducati MotoGP Project Manager Livio Suppo. "We are happy about that and we have set good times in these dry conditions - so we have to say thank you to Bridgestone for the efforts they have made.

"Even if it rains tomorrow we know that we should have no problems, as Bridgestone have a proven record in wet conditions. That fact also makes today particularly positive, because we have good info for the dry and no fears about the possibility of rain," he declared.