Steve immediately bettered his time from the recent FPR test session at the circuit by half a second with a lap of 1:41.677 in the morning free practice, and took another third of a second off in the afternoon on race rubber.

His best time on a qualifier, 1:40.924, placed him 12th and within a second of pacesetter Chris Vermeulen, who impressively set the target of 1:39.847 on a race tyre.

Garry, on his first visit to the circuit, ended the morning session in 22nd with a time of 1:43.870 after being hampered by technical problems on both bikes. He made huge strides forward in the afternoon but was just off the top 16 pace on qualifying rubber in 18th position and his chances of making Superpole will rest on tomorrow’s weather, with heavy rain forecast.

Steve said: “It has been a good first day. The thing that’s going for us around here is that I am doing consistent times on race tyres, which is what we have been working on today and shows the continual development of the bike. We didn’t use a new tyre until 15 minutes before the end of the afternoon session and I was able to do a 1:41.8 lap time on a tyre that was 24 laps old.”

Garry said: “We tried a few things in the afternoon such as a different rear shock, different link and different front fork setting but the progress came from getting used to the track as the bike that finished the second session was set up more or less the same as in the morning. The problem was that I didn’t get in a lot of laps in the morning due to a couple of technical problems. Normally at a new circuit I like to go out and just stay out there no matter what. If it rains in the morning then my chances of making Superpole are obviously over, so we will have to keep our fingers crossed.”

Friday qualifying times, Superbike World Championship round 10, Eurospeedway Lausitz, Germany: 1 Vermeulen 1:39.847; 2 Corser 1:40.092; 3 Haga 1:40.102; 4 Lanzi 1:40.144; 5 Muggeridge 1:40.155; 6 Chili 1:40.249; 7 Toseland 1:40.276; 8 Pitt 1:40.417; 9 Neukirchner 1:40.669; 12 Martin (Foggy PETRONAS Racing) 1:40.924; 18 McCoy (Foggy PETRONAS Racing) 1:41.311

Friday morning free practice: 1 Toseland (Ducati Xerox) 1:40.595; 2 Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate Honda) 1:40.937; 3 Lanzi (Ducati Xerox) 1:40.938; 4 Pitt (Yamaha Italia) 1:41.076; 5 Corser (Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra) 1:41.117; 6 Haga (Yamaha Italia) 1:41.665; 7 Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda) 1:41.667; 8 Martin (Foggy PETRONAS Racing) 1:41.677; 9 Chili (Klaffi Honda) 1:41.699; 10 Schulten (Alfa Technik) 1:41.814; 22 McCoy (Foggy PETRONAS Racing) 1:43.870