Sylvain Guintoli is not a rider with a reputation for being wild, but his move at the top of the Corkscrew this morning has had serious repercussions for Alex Hofmann. Guintoli got in too hot and centre-punched the luckless German who collected a nasty break to a metatarsal in his left hand to match the one he got just over a week ago in his right hand. He went straight o the operating theatre.

As you are allowed to replace a MotoGP rider at up to midday on Saturday Pramac Ducati team manager Luis d'Antin cast around for a replacement. His first thought was Ben Bostrom - a man with experience of the track and big four-strokes. A second thought suggested that Yamaha probably wouldn't like the idea. Then the name Chaz Davies came up. OK, said Luis, he has a bit of four-stroke experience and he's young, why not?

So Chaz duct-taped up Alex's name on the leathers, sat on the bike and was pushed off down pit lane. He didn't even have time to adjust the riding position. An hour later he was still the slowest of the twenty men out there - what else did you expect? - but a mere three-quarters of a second slower than Miguel DuHamel. He impressed everyone with the way he worked and improved his times lap by lap. 'To be honest,' said Luis d'Antin, a man who is not easy to pleasse, 'he was better than I hoped.'

Chaz wasn't the only wild-card or replacement rider impressing people. Roger Hayden was only one-third of a second down on top Kawasaki man De Puniet and the team liked what they saw, especially his determination not to throw the thing away. However, Roger did allow himself a pass on his older brother right at the end of the afternoon session.

At the other end of the field, opinion is divided about the new track surface. Everyone is agreed that there is adequate grip and but most people think the place is still too bumpy. The exception is Valentino Rossi whose opinion of the work is 'They did a good job.' Casey didn't agree, which didn't stop him being fastest man all day. Whoever's right, Nicky Hayden's fastest ever lap of Laguna is only a third-of-a-second faster than Stoner's time this afternoon.

It'll be blown away in qualifying tomorrow.