Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli has been using today’s World Superbike practice sessions to test how far he can push himself with his injured shoulder.

The main concern for the ranking leader was seeing how the shoulder he dislocated before the Moscow round would hold up. The response after the first sessions was encouraging. The Frenchman put in a total of 29 laps around the German circuit, and clocked the sixth best time on the boards during the practice qualifiers this afternoon.

He was just half a second from the top of the timesheets and riding on used tyres, and now the racer is feeling positive for the weekend ahead.

"My goal today was to see how my shoulder would react and I must say that, in spite of the pain, I felt a lot of improvement compared to Silverstone,” said Guintoli.

“This is positive, especially since we had a few problems, so being able to perform without any physical hindrances allowed me to work better. Particularly concerning my riding style, I noticed that this track demands some adapting in order to be really fast.

“Today when I tried to push hard I didn't put in any remarkable times, but when I was looking for new lines and thought I was going slower my times dropped even with the worn tyre. That's a good sign. I'm feeling good and I think that if we can improve our pace on a new tyre we'll be able to set our sights on a good result. We're on the right track".