Aussies battle for superbike pole

Aussie champs Troy Bayliss on a Ducati and Troy Corser on a Yamaha have been battling for line honours at the final world superbike test session at Qatar, with the former getting the nod by just 0.2 of a second.

Bayliss: "I'm pretty happy with how things have gone here. On Tuesday we sorted out a few "gremlins" so to speak. We had a brand new bike here and it always takes a bit of time to run in so we hope that we have solved those problems before next week's race. We've tried different things today with regard to set-up and I managed to complete 55 laps. Lap times were good and we were able to do a long-run after lunch too which went well. I'm also pretty positive about my condition, as although yesterday I wasn't feeling so comfortable with the bike's settings, I felt much better today after we changed a few things and I think I can say I'm pretty much back to normal. I'm happy I still have another week to get even fitter before next week."

Bayliss has been recovering from a broken collarbone, an injury scored during testing at Phillip Island in January.

Corser was also upbeat: "We tried a few new things with the variable intake settings for example, but only a little bit at this test. That said, we still found a lot of positive stuff over the past two days. It was mostly a shakedown test, with a bit of back-to-back comparison of the different bikes and I feel really confident with our starting package for this coming season. The only downside was that I felt a bit feverish this afternoon, aching a bit, like I'm catching the 'flu, so it wasn't that much fun on the bike sometimes. The results were still good, so I'm confident in the bike and team. With what we found today, I would be happy to go and start the championship tomorrow."

Times:
Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) 1m58.8s;
Corser (Yamaha) 1m59.0s;
Haga (Yamaha) 1m59.6s;
Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) 1m59.6s

Pics: Ducati.com; Yamaha-racing.com