With his team-mate Alvaro Bautista running away out front again in round two, after his dominant showings on the all-new Ducati V4R in Australia, Chaz Davies was still trying to get himself forward after practice on Friday, and his lot did not improve that much in Superpole qualifying, going ninth fastest.

He was only 11th on Friday as he tries to fathom his new four-cylinder bike after so many years on a big V-twin.

“On the timesheet it does not look that good but the feeling is a little bit better than what we managed in Australia," Davies told bikesportnews.com. "I feel like there is a good margin to improve. A little bit here, a little bit there, some adaptation from me and to adapt the bike as well.

"We made a medium-sized change from Phillip Island to here. Some positives but when go into that area you need to fine tune in that area. You move from A to B but from then on there are a lot of details you need to work on.”

With Bautista flying up front, Davies’s only real issue on day one was in the third sector of the circuit, but the rider himself feels the need to just become one with his bike before any huge moves can be made.

It is a bit of a match. I know how to get the lap time at most of the tracks on the calendar, we have always been there or thereabouts. It is just a matter of being able to do it with this bike.

"We are sure it is capable, it is just trying to figure out how to make it happen. It is quite difficult not having any experience to rely on and still I don’t really know what I want from the bike.

"I know what I want it to do but the change that we need to make to get it there? I dunno. We need more time to understand it, really.”

Click here for qualifying times