Motegi MotoGP: James Toseland fights back in Japan

British rider James Toseland proved that his motivation and determination haven’t suffered after a torrid start to the 2009 MotoGP world championship.

A bitterly disappointing 16th place finish in the season’s opening race in Qatar followed two massive high-side crashes in winter testing earlier this month.

But the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider came fighting back to form today at the Twin Ring Motegi, the 28-year-old clocking the 10th best time in the opening free practice session.

Toseland logged a best time of 1.50.342 and for long parts of the 45-minute session he was running inside the top six until a late surge of fast lap times bumped him back down the order.

Toseland himself was confident he could have easily dipped into the 1.49 bracket had he not come across Scot Honda rider Yuki Takahashi on his last lap.

The double World Superbike champion though was clearly relieved to have rediscovered some of the form that carried him to six top six finishes in his rookie campaign last year.

Toseland spent the majority of the session evaluating Bridgestone’s hard compound front and rear tyres, with today’s session expected to be the only dry outing for the MotoGP field before Sunday’s 24-lap race.

Forecasters have predicted a 90 per cent chance of rain tomorrow (Saturday), and Toseland said: “I ran most of the session on the hard tyre with the weather not looking too good for tomorrow, but I did try the softer one at the end just to check on it.

“I doubt we’d be able to run it in the race, even if the temperature is quite low. So if it rains tomorrow and it’s dry for the race, at least I know I’ll run the harder tyre.

“It was a difficult first race but we’re not losing motivation and my team have all stuck together.”

He also tried a new front fork setting, which he liked on his Yamaha YZR-M1 today, designed to boost his confidence under hard braking.

He added: “Right to the end I was looking good to be around the top six but I caught (Yuki) Takahashi on my last lap when the tyre was working pretty good, so I’m sure I could have got into the 1.49s.

“I had a slightly different setting on the front fork today to get a bit more control under braking. This place is all about hard braking and that is an area I’ve needed to work on.

“I’ve got a bit more control on initial braking so it doesn’t upset the bike as much when I’m turning in. I’m a little bit miffed that it is going to rain tomorrow when you think I’ve really started to make some progress in the dry.

“Another two sessions in the dry would have helped me a lot.”