On a dirty track surface, Valentino Rossi spent the single 45 minute session working on finding a race setup, as well as continuing to familiarize themselves with the still-new Desmosedici GP12. Rossi, who used just a single hard tyre, finished the night tenth-quickest.
Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) 10th (1:57.914)
"It's the first practice and I used the hard tyre the whole session, trying to do a lot of laps in order to understand it. The new tyre is much better for warming up, so good for safety, but it started to slide a lot after some laps and made some of the understeer worse. We have to work with the setting and also the electronics. The soft will be important for Saturday, but the hard will be the tyre for the race. Tomorrow we'll try to do better."
source: Ducati Press Release