From a press release issued by FG Sport Group: Ruben Xaus smashed the lap record on the first day of official Superbike testing at Valencia in preparation for the third round of the HANNspree Superbike World Championship here on April 6th. Ducati Sterilgarda Go Eleven’s Spanish rider, a winner here last year, lapped in a time of 1m34.265s, the best performance ever by a Superbike on this track. Second quickest today was Yukio Kagayama, back in action again in record time after breaking his collarbone in the opening round in Qatar in February. Suzuki Alstare’s Japanese rider set a time of 1m35.368s and was the quickest rider out there on race tyres. Another Spanish rider Carlos Checa was also up at the front on the new CBR RR of the HANNspree Ten Kate Honda team, posting third quickest time of 1m35.395s. In excellent weather conditions (air 23°C, track 32°C), Régis Laconi made good progress for the Kawasaki PSG-1 Corse squad, the Frenchman setting fifth quickest time ahead of Checa’s team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari. In the afternoon session Ayrton Badovini (Kawasaki) had a harmless crash and Laconi finished off the track. Ruben Xaus will not be taking part in tomorrow’s second and final day of testing. Ducati Xerox (Bayliss-Fabrizio), Yamaha Italia (Corser-Haga) and Sterilgarda Go Eleven Ducati’s Max Biaggi are absent from the tests. Times: 1. Xaus (Ducati) 1m34.265s; 2. Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m35.368s; 3. Checa (Honda) 1m35.395s; 4. Kiyonari (Honda) 1m35.797s; 5. Laconi (Kawasaki) 1m35.910s; 6. Neukirchner (Suzuki) 1m35.946s; 7. Lanzi (Ducati) 1m36.018s; 8. Tamada (Kawasaki) 1m36.047s; 9. Rolfo (Honda) 1m36.182s; 10. Muggeridge (Honda) 1m36.211s; 12. Badovini (Kawasaki) 1m36.853s; 13. Nieto (Suzuki) 1m36.952s. More, from a press release issued by HANNspree Ten Kate Honda: Superbike team shows further progress in Valencia test The HANNspree Ten Kate Honda Superbike team today once again showed they are on the pace with the development of the new Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade and are playing catch-up with time lost earlier in the season. Carlos Checa has been capable of being consistently fast, while teammate Ryuichi Kiyonari followed closely and showed his growing improvement on the bike in every outing. Kenan Sofuoglu was forced to down the table throughout the sessions finding it still difficult to adapt his riding style to the superbike on each new track. The team will continue working on the set-up of the bike to ensure the he can improve on his lap time in the second day of testing tomorrow. Ronald ten Kate, Team manager: It has been a good first day of testing for both Checa and Kiyonari who were both fast out of the box today testing different parts. Even though we are still developing the machine we are capable of recording good lap times and keep them consistent. Sofuoglu is struggling here a bit at the moment, he’s still using too much of a Supersport riding style on the bike which is his usual problem when we come to a new track for the first time. I’m convinced he will get up to pace in tomorrow’s session and will be capable to improve his pace. This test is quite important to us as it’s the first time we’ll arrive here for the next race having spend the same testing time on the track as the other teams, which should give us an advantage on race day. We’ll test some more parts tomorrow and focus on the longer runs as well as testing the Pirelli qualifiers. Carlos Checa: 1’35.395 I’m positive about the testing we have done today. We arrived here with the bike setup we used in Australia and only needed little time to get into the quick lap times compared to last year’s ones. On average we are one second faster, but then the pace of most riders is quicker then last year’s. We have solved the problems we had earlier with the brakes, now with the speed increasing we experience some chattering like we did in Australian. The different swing arm and balance of suspension we’ve tested seem to work but cause little problems on which we’ll focus in tomorrow’s session. Ryuichi Kiyonari : 1’35.797 We have improved the machine setting today and have tried many different settings to improve the machines balance. I seem to understand the machine better every time I leave the pit box. I also feel more comfortable and relaxed on the bike. In tomorrow’s test we’ll test some more settings of the machine in order to improve my pace and bring the lap times further down. Kenan Sofuoglu: 1’37.123 It hasn’t been an easy day here today and I feel quite tired after the long sessions. I completed more laps then we normally do on race weekends. The lap times were definitely not fast enough but I’ve mainly focused on understanding the power usage and the traction control today. I obviously can’t be happy with this result but there’s another day of testing tomorrow. Official test results Superbike day 1, 2nd session: 1. R. Xaus 1’34.265 2. Y. Kagayama 1’35.368 3. C. Checa 1’35.395 4. R. Kiyonari 1’35.797 5. R. Laconi 1’35.910 6. M. Neukirchner 1’35.946 7. L. Lanzi 1’36.018 8. M. Tamada 1’36.047 9. R. Rolfo 1’36.182 10. K. Muggeridge 1’36.211 14. K. Sofuoglu 1’37.123 More, from another press release issued by HANNspree Ten Kate Honda: Pitt on the pace in Valencia test Having only just returned to Europe after two flyaway races in Qatar and Australia, the HANNspree Ten Kate Honda Supersport team have completed their first day of testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia today. With his closest rivals of the last two races lacking in presence, World Supersport rider Andrew Pitt managed to keep up the pace he displayed in the last race and recorded satisfactory lap times in today’s test, while teammate Jonathan Rea initially struggled to get to terms with his bike on the Valencia circuit. Ronald ten Kate, Team manager: Andrew Pitt has shown his pace here by being fast straight away. We have done a lot of laps on used tires with lap times consistently improving compared to the times achieved in last year’s race. Jonathan has had a rather difficult day testing here. The Valencia track is quite challenging to him at the moment but we’ll have a look at the data overnight to set up improvements for tomorrow’s test. Sebastian Charpentier has been offering his help and assistance to Jonathan here today. We know he is capable of riding the bike around here and expect him to step up and improve his lap times in tomorrow’s second day of testing. Andrew Pitt: 1’38.972 It’s been a good day for me. We’ve started with the Phillip Island setting on one bike and on the other bike the Valencia setting as I’ve used here last year while replacing Charpentier. We’ve made good progress with the Phillip Island setting straight away and tried to get the same setup for both bikes. We’ve only got standard tires and are just working on a base setting so we can roll straight out of the garage and go forward tomorrow. Am happy with the way the bike is working at the moment. There’s only a couple of small things we want to try and improve but I have been capable of riding consistent here, after ten laps I can still keep the same time. I’ll just try to go that little bit faster on the new tires we’ll be testing tomorrow. Jonathan Rea: 1’38.583 This test has been a bit of a shakedown for me really. I haven’t been riding here since 2003 so today I have been familiarising myself again with the track and trying to find the right base setup. It’s been quite frustrating for me not to be at the top of the time sheets but we’re here to learn and still have another day of testing ahead of us tomorrow. My mechanics have worked very hard trying out different settings so we should be able to put some good results down tomorrow and leave here well prepared for the Valencia race in a few weeks time. Official test results day 1, 2nd session: 1. G. Gowland 1’37.972 2. A. Pitt 1’38.033 3. G. Vizziello 1’38.060 4. M. Roccoli 1’38.095 5. C. Jones 1’38.110 6. G. Nannelli 1’38.184 7. J. Rea 1’38.583 8. C. Walker 1’38.600 9. G. Leblanc 1’38.712 10. B. Veneman 1’38.764