Learning curve continues at Ilmor.

Mario Illien's fledgling Ilmor SRT team completed its first ever MotoGP qualifying session 20th and last at Estoril on Saturday - but easily made the cut for Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix.

Australian Garry McCoy had a difficult task ahead of him as he tried to exploit the maximum out of his Michelin qualifying tyres for the first time but, despite being hampered by a rear shock absorber problem, the former 500GP race winner comfortably qualified within 107% of the pole time.

"It was great to be out qualifying with the other guys again," said Garry, who was 0.8secs slower than Jose Luis Cardoso's d'Antin Ducati. "So far this weekend is going to plan for us, everything is going smoothly. Every session we've managed to improve on time up until qualifying where we had a few problems, that's to be expected though at this stage because we are still developing the bike."

McCoy - whose 2007 spec X3 is powered by an 800cc engine, almost 20 per cent smaller than the 990cc opposition - set a best lap time of 1min 41.260secs during qualifying. That was 5.060secs slower than Valentino Rossi's pole position but, with McCoy having actually lapped faster in final free practice, was far from the X3's ultimate qualifying potential.

"We finished qualifying without any dramas so I'm pleased about that but I'm frustrated that we couldn't improve on the lap time," admitted Illien. "It was the first time we've had the X? on qualifying tyres so we've learnt a lot during qualifying. We also had a rear shock absorber problem that we discovered after qualifying which might account for the loss in performance - now we know about it, we can fix it. Currently we're focussing on producing the best possible set up for the race tomorrow."

"In all honesty I'm a little disappointed with qualifying," added Eskil Suter of Suter Racing Technology (SRT). "We had problems with the set up of the bike with the qualifying tyres and a minor rear shock absorber issue - we were faster in the practice session this morning. The bike seemed a little off-balance so now we definitely need to concentrate on improving the set up and finding the best solution for the race tomorrow."

Ilmor SRT will now try to complete a promising weekend with a reliable race performance - and perhaps beat one of the 990cc machines. However, past history suggests that bikes reliant on corner speed - rather than straight line speed - lose out in race situations because they are held up in the turns, then lose ground to their more powerful rivals on the straights. Examples include the Team KR three-cylinder two-stroke and the Foggy Petronas FP1 WSBK machine.

McCoy was 22.3km/h slower than Casey Stoner's Honda RCV in a straight line during qualifying.