Carlos Checa fastest in WSBK testing

Spain’s Carlos Checa will head into this weekend’s opening round of the 2011 Superbike World Championship bristling with confidence after setting the fastest time in a two-day test session at Phillip Island.

The world No. 3 has dialled his Ducati into perfection and will head into the season-opener as the warm favourite, with the world Superbike title set to make its 21st appearance at the decorated Victorian venue.

“It was a very positive test and a fantastic lap time,” said Checa. “I was a bit worried before because I had not done so much testing and I arrived here and was not sure if we had enough time on the bike.

“During the winter I did a GP race, then I went to the desert, then some motocross, and it was all a bit confusing. Portugal testing was not so positive because of the weather, so I arrived here without the required full confidence.

“But we’ve been able to grow up very quick from the first day, the pace of the bike at this track is good, I feel very close with the team and that’s why I’m in this position.”

While Checa is in menacing form, Australia’s main championship hope Troy Corser only finished the test session in a lowly 16th on his factory BMW, four spots behind 24-year-old Mildura wildcard Josh Waters (Suzuki).

But Corser, a seven-time winner at Phillip Island, is expected to make a quantum leap forward when real business of practice and qualifying begins on Friday, before the two 22-lap races are held on Sunday.

“We tested here a couple of weeks ago already, and we tried a lot of different things here yesterday and today,” said Corser. “So far, it is difficult to judge whether we went into the right direction. We will know more on Friday.

“The conditions today have been close to perfect. It was not too warm for the tyres and it is not too windy today. I am not surprised that Carlos Checa was able to beat the Superbike lap record. Tomorrow will be a day off, before we head into the first race weekend of the season.”

Only a handful of riders managed to better their best times from this morning in the final afternoon session. Checa wasn’t one of them, but his sizzling time of 1min30.578secs wasn’t close to being eclipsed this afternoon, as he completed the four-session, 560-minute official test ahead of fellow Ducati rider Sylvain Guintoli, Honda’s Jonathan Rea, Ducati’s Jakub Smrz and Kawasaki’s Joan Lascorz.

Checa’s morning blitz was well under the official lap record held by Corser, and also humbled the best ever world superbike lap at Phillip Island by nearly half a second.

Rea’s day ended disastrously when he crashed in the afternoon session at the fast turn three and his bike caught on fire. He was initially diagnosed with a fractured and dislocated ring finger on his left hand, but has also now been airlifted to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne to have a pre-existing wrist injury checked out.

World No 2 Leon Haslam was another to bite the dust on day two, coming off twice in the morning session but emerging unscathed both times.

Haslam and Checa shared wins in last year’s Phillip Island world Superbike round.

Aprilia’s world champion Max Biaggi was sixth overall in the test, edging out Suzuki’s Michel Fabrizio and Yamaha’s former MotoGP star Marco Melandri.

All five brands represented in this year’s championship made it into the top 10, which reflects how competitive the racing is expected to be.

Perth rider Bryan Staring was 18th on his Kawasaki, while Newcastle’s Mark Aitchison was 22nd, also on a Kawasaki.

Sunshine Coast’s Chris Vermeulen (Kawasaki) sat out the test while he continues to make slow recovery from knee surgery, and he’s also withdrawn from round one.