McCoy is riding for Team Xerox Ducati Nortel Networks, after a morning session focused in the setting of the bike, in the afternoon stopped the stopwatches on a laptime of 1m37.208.  This time was set on race tyres and repeated a few laps later.

"We went on to set the bike up," - said McCoy at the end of practice - "but I'm getting experience on the twin cylinder, so I'm pretty satisfied. I reached my fastest lap quite easily, without pushing and while I was testing a race tyre. Later with qualifying tyres I wasn't able to go any quicker because I preferred not to push. With soft tyres I am still not too comfortable. The bike is very fast, tomorrow we'll see if I'll be able to improve my laptime, but the weather conditions will be very important."

A black day for his team-mate Miguel Praia: a couple of crashes ruined the debut day of the Portuguese rider, unable to get a good result like that got two weeks ago during the test session on this track.

"Those two crashes forced the team to work hard on the bike," - said Miguel after his second crash - "just while I need to practice for a better feeling on the bike."