Corser from Biaggi

Troy Corser continued his strong pre season form onboard the Yamaha Italia R1 to top the time sheets in a two day test in Qatar. 

Although his lap time was one second slower than Troy Bayliss’ outright best Superbike lap set in December of last year, Corser didn’t have prototype Pirelli tyres at his disposal which are reckoned to be worth in the region of one second per lap.

In their previous test at Phillip Island, Yamaha riders Corser and Noriyuki Haga ran out of components to test, but since then the team have been able to return to their base in Italy where they have worked on new chassis and suspension components to improve grip and tyre life.

Corser’s 1m 59.1 second lap was two tenths of a second faster than Italian Max Biaggi who continued working on the set-up and balance of his Alstare Suzuki.

Haga ended the test third with a 1m 59.9s lap despite crashing out on day one unhurt. Fellow Japanese rider Yukio Kagayama ended the test fourth fastest a full second slower than his new team-mate, Max Biaggi.

Corser said:”We did enough laps to let us try everything we needed to try and we got all the parts we asked for after the last test. It was a definite improvement. 

“We were not so concerned with doing long runs as the tyres Pirelli sent here are not the tyres we will use for the race anyway. I was more interested in getting a feel for what we have been changing on the bikes. 

“We just tried different things and weren’t worried about lap times. I’d say the bike feels even better than it did in our last test in Doha.”

1. Troy Corser Yamaha Italia 1m 59.1s
2. Max Biaggi Alstare Suzuki 1m’59.3s
3. Noriyuki Haga Yamaha Italia 1m’59.9s
4. Yukio Kagayama Alstare Suzuki 2m’00.3s