California drama for HM Plant Ducati.

The first day's track action at the stunning Laguna Seca Raceway in California was a dramatic, yet successful affair for Neil Hodgson and James Toseland. The HM Plant Ducati riders both qualified with ease, but the two sessions were not without incident, most notably for Toseland who crashed in morning practice. Despite everything, Toseland still qualified a solid 11th, while his team-mate made it to third on the provisional grid, fractionally behind the factory Ducatis of Laguna specialist Ben Bostrom (second) and reigning World Champion Troy Bayliss (pole).

California drama for HM Plant Ducati.

The first day's track action at the stunning Laguna Seca Raceway in California was a dramatic, yet successful affair for Neil Hodgson and James Toseland. The HM Plant Ducati riders both qualified with ease, but the two sessions were not without incident, most notably for Toseland who crashed in morning practice. Despite everything, Toseland still qualified a solid 11th, while his team-mate made it to third on the provisional grid, fractionally behind the factory Ducatis of Laguna specialist Ben Bostrom (second) and reigning World Champion Troy Bayliss (pole).

Hodgson loves the demanding Laguna Seca layout and had been consistently fast throughout the day. After missing a considerable amount of track time due to minor technical problems early in the afternoon session, he put in an extremely determined performance to grab a provisional front row start with his best lap time of 1:25.721.

"To be honest, I've had a pretty frustrating day," said Hodgson. "Losing all that track time didn't do me any favours and then I made a mistake on my fast lap. My Chief Engineer Roberto Bonazzi sorted the HM Plant Ducati immediately, so it was just down to my slip up that my time wasn't better. There's a lot more to come from me on Saturday. The HM Plant Ducati is working perfectly now and the conditions are excellent, so I'm just going to get my head down and go for it. To be third at this early stage is good, but that's not the point. I want to win this thing."

Toseland's day got off to a bad start when he fell victim to oil on the track and the resulting crash caused his bike to burst in to flames. The #52 Ducati 998 F01 was entirely destroyed in the fire.

"It's just been one of those days for me," said the 21-year-old Yorkshireman. "Somebody's bike was leaking oil and when I hit a patch the front just went away from me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. We don't have the parts with us to rebuild it, so it looks like I'm down to just one bike for the rest of the weekend. I'm going to have to take things extra carefully from now on because I've got the second qualifying session, Superpole and two races to get through. If I bash this bike up, I'm out of the event. I should be OK though - I'll just get into Superpole and take it from there."

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