Jorge Lorenzo – Position: 1st Time: 1’57.215 Laps: 19
“I am happy to be riding here in Brno again. It’s always difficult to go back to work after the holidays and this track is so different to Laguna, so wide and much longer; it took me a few more laps than usual to get going! Once I found my rhythm this was a good session and I felt happy on my bike, with a good setting to start from. We tried both rear tyres and we need more time to choose, because unfortunately it rained a bit at the end and we had to stop early. We’ll have to wait and see how the track is tomorrow but we hope for it to be dry so we can continue with what we started on today.”

Valentino Rossi – Position: 3rd Time: 1’57.821 Laps: 21
“I’m happy, this was a good practice and I feel good on the bike. After some laps I started to feel some pain in the shoulder and the leg but in general I am okay and my condition has improved a lot from the last race. We’ve done a good job on the setting and I was fastest throughout most of the session. It was a pity the rain came because we couldn’t make the final step, but hopefully we can improve again tomorrow. Even though I still have some pain I am quite a lot stronger, especially with the shoulder, so I don’t have such a big problem in braking.”

Davide Brivio – Team Manager “It was a good session because we tested two different settings and Valentino was almost constantly the fastest. Unfortunately it rained in the last fifteen minutes and we couldn’t make our final test but it’s okay, it seems we’re in good shape. Tomorrow we will continue to fine-tune the setting and hopefully make another step with the lap times.”

Edwards and Spies make positive return to action
The second half of the 2010 MotoGP campaign got underway in impressive fashion today for Monster Yamaha Tech 3 duo Colin Edwards and Ben Spies.

Refreshed after a short two-week summer break, Edwards was immediately able to set a fast pace on board his Yamaha YZR-M1 machine as he tried an experimental front-end geometry setting in today’s opening practice session at the Brno circuit.

Edwards was a permanent fixture in the top six throughout as he took full advantage of the improved turning performance from the revised front setting.

Making solid progress with the extra confidence created by the changes as the session wore on, Edwards clocked a best time of 1.58.497 to finish top non-factory rider in sixth position as he edged out former world champion Casey Stoner. The 36-year-old had been as high as fourth at the halfway stage.

Spies declared himself satisfied with his afternoon’s work as a best lap of 1.58.970 secured him the ninth fastest time.

Earlier bright sunshine had quickly given way to cloudier conditions when the session commenced and Spies’ hopes of lowering his lap times were thwarted when light rain started to fall in the final 15 minutes. The short rain shower fell at the worst moment for the 26-year-old, who was poised to undertake a series of laps on a new front-end geometry setting he was convinced would help him move further up the leaderboard.

Spies, who won one World Superbike race at the technical and challenging Czech Republic circuit last season, had been as high as sixth place and is confident with more time on the revised front-end setting that he can be challenging for a top six result in Sunday’s 22-lap race.

Colin Edwards – Position 6th Time: 1.58.497 – 17 laps
“I felt pretty good immediately and I feel like we should be in for a strong weekend if we can build on the momentum from today. A lot this season we have started on the back foot a bit and spent the whole weekend playing catch-up. But we’ve got a platform to build on and that’s mainly down to a new front-end setting we tried. Thanks to my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3 because they came up with this experimental setting and it worked really well. We put more weight on the front and I like it better than what I started the session on. Now the bike holds the turn a lot better and I’m not running wide. We’ve put more force t hrough the front tyre to help it turn and I’m sure we can make another step tomorrow if we get dry conditions. I’ve never had a top six here before, so after this start I’m hoping to put that right on Sunday.”