Last Day of Testing at Phillip Island Ends with Ducati on Top

The last day of testing at Phillip Island has ended with Ducati on top of the time board. After losing Troy Bayliss to retirement last year, Michel Fabrizio and Noriyuki Haga have stepped up to show that they are ready to defend the Ducati crown. Fabrizio ended the day the fastest, with a time of 1’32.19 it was well under Bayliss’ winning lap time from last year’s race. Team mate Haga was not far behind, just fractionally ahead of new boy Ben Spies. The American took a second off his time from yesterday, on only the second day of riding at the track.

The day also saw more crashes, with both Britons Johnny Rea and Tom Sykes hitting the dirt, both fortunately uninjured. As expected, Carlos Checa chose to sit the day out, but the big victim on Saturday was BMW’s Troy Corser who hit a seagull, which is not an unusual occurrence for a racetrack at the edge of the sea, but the force was such that he was advised by medical staff not to take any further part in the session. Up until that point, Corser had been making good progress on the BMW, closing the gap on the front runners. In the end, he finished the day with the 6th fastest time.

In the Supersport class, it was the turn of the Ten Kate riders to make progress. 2007 champion Kenan Sofuoglu finished the day on top, clearly in form for the season, ahead of Garry McCoy on the Triumph 675. The Triumph has made progress since last year, and with McCoy being competitive last year at Phillip Island, it could throw up a surprise next weekend. McCoy finished ahead of fellow Australian Andrew Pitt. Best of all for the Ten Kate Honda riders, they finished ahead of the Yamaha Supersport riders Cal Crutchlow and Fabien Foret. That rivalry looks ready to run and run again this season.

World Superbike

Pos.	Rider	Bike	Time
1	Michel Fabrizio	Ducati	1’32.19
2	Noriyuki Haga	Ducati	1’32.30
3	Ben Spies	Yamaha	1’32.36
4	Max Neukirchner	Suzuki	1’32.59
5	Yukio Kagayama	Suzuki	1’32.78
6	Troy Corser	BMW	1’32.93
7	Jonathan Rea	Honda	1’32.96
8	Tom Sykes	Yamaha	1’33.10
9	Ruben Xaus	BMW	1’33.53.

Fastest lap in previous test set by Max Biaggi on an Aprilia RSV4, with a time of 1’32.59 seconds.

World Supersport

Pos.	Rider	Bike	Time
1	Kenan Sofuoglu	Honda	1’34.7
2	Garry McCoy	Triumph	1’34.8
3	Andrew Pitt	Honda	1’34.8
4	Cal Crutchlow	Yamaha	1’35.3
5	Fabien Foret	Yamaha	1’35.8
6	Gianluca Nannelli	Triumph	1’36.3
7	Doni Tata Pradita	Yamaha	1’37.3.