Yamaha riders Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies are both intent on making a step forward before qualifying after seeing Repsol Honda set the pace on Friday at Laguna Seca.
Lorenzo was three tenths down on title rival Dani Pedrosa today and was concerned by a lack of feeling with the hard tyres, something which has complicated the decision on tyre choice for the race.
“This afternoon we tried the hard rear tyre but it didn't work as well as the soft one this morning. We have to try the soft again tomorrow to improve the setting for the hard so we can decide which tyre to use for the race. We also tried a different setting in the last ten minutes of FP2 but it didn't improve anything so we lost that time. I'm hoping to improve both the feeling and also the lap time for tomorrow.”
Spies was fourth behind the second Repsol Honda of Casey Stoner but the American was much happier and thinks he has a strong bike in race trim.
“Today was good, we worked on a lot of laps on the soft tyre in the morning when the track wasn't so great but not too bad either. We did a lot of laps on the old tyres and the bike was pretty quick so I'm happy with that. The bike's got a good balance, we just need to fine-tune it to get a few more tenths out of it but I think for race pace we're looking good.”