Ben Spies' opinion on Casey Stoner is representative of most people here: He's from a different planet. He reckoned he could understand what Rossi and Lorenzo were doing with their M1s but Casey's speed passeth comprehension.

Want an unbiased opinion? Let's ask Valentino: "Spies is not so bad, I'm positively impressed by Ben." So's Mick Doohan, he was talking today of Ben winning races next year and finishing deep into the top ten tomorrow. Ben won't say anything that optimistic, but lots of other people will. He's where he belongs.

The Aussie made light of a very tricky track complicated by extremely high winds, aided by Ducati's new bodywork that debuted at Estoril and made "...a big difference, it made things more consistent, I can keep the weight on the front."

The Fiat Yamaha team men both had problems, albeit different. Rossi just can't get any rear grip: "How I like the bike is not suitable for this track. Difficult to fix the problem now, tomorrow the maximum is a podium."

Jorge Lorenzo can't make up his mind what to do. He is a lot better shape than Valentino but is acutely aware that he needs just one point to secure second in the championship: "Not a happy thing, I don't know what I'm going to do."

Which leaves Dani Pedrosa as maybe the only challenger to Stoner. He's cautiously optimistic, has got faster with every session and badly needs a second win this season.

As for Spies, he's impressed everybody. He knows the first five laps will be difficult because of his unfamiliarity with the Bridgestones. He's still searching for the limit of the bike and thought he was crashing in one corner only to find that it was the best bend of the session. Ben followed Dovizioso for a while and was able to close on him, when Dovi let him past Spies was able to maintain his pace. When Lorenzo and Stoner came past, Ben didn't even try to follow because he "Didn't want to look stupid on TV."