Catalunya MotoGP: James Toseland savours fast start

British rider James Toseland admitted his 10th place on the timesheets at the end of the opening MotoGP practice session in Catalunya was his best start to a Grand Prix in 2009.

The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider clocked a best time of 1.44.580 on his last lap to move from 13th to 10th, though the final result wasn’t a true reflection on what was a morale-boosting session for the 28-year-old.

Toseland ended 0.4s off a top six finish as he tried a new rear shock setting to cope with the notoriously bumpy Montmelo surface. The double World Superbike champion, who was as high as fifth place in the final 20 minutes, said: “On paper it doesn’t look spectacular but I’m really pleased with today because it was easily my best start to a weekend this season.

“I was seventh until the final minutes so that’s encouraging and at the end I was out on quite an old rear tyre, which was moving around quite a bit. With a new tyre I’m sure I could have got a bit further up, but I wanted to get some information on the hard tyre for the race.

“We tried a slightly different setting on the rear shock, softening the spring to try and help the bike cushion the bumps a little bit better here because the track is quite bump to be fair.

“At the beginning we’d gone a bit too soft and that was making the rear of the bike sit a bit too low and we had to make a couple of small changes, but my team did a great job as always because it improved the feeling.

“We found a bit more grip at the end and I did my best lap on a rear tyre that had already done 16 laps and I was nearly half-a-second quicker than my previous best so it shows we’re moving in the right direction.

“After today I feel quite confident for the weekend. It looks like we’ll get a good dry weekend and I had a good result here last year. So I’m pleased to have something to build on.”