From a press release issued by FGSport Group:

The 2008 HANNspree Superbike World Championship gets underway this weekend with the opening round in Qatar, the first in a scheduled 14-race calendar. The 2008 season will be the twenty-first of the championship, which began back at Donington, UK in 1988.

All the leading challengers in last year’s thrilling championship Noriyuki Haga, Max Biaggi, Troy Bayliss, Troy Corser, Ruben Xaus are back again this year and they will be joined by a healthy influx of competitive riders from other series to make up an impressive grid of 28 permanent riders.

After the final days of unofficial pre-season testing for some of the top teams in World Superbike, the stopwatches demonstrated that a few well-known names in World Superbike will be the toughest to beat when the season starts. Not all riders were on track on all the Qatar test days last week however, and some of the other teams in the series had chosen to stay in Europe for their final tests.

Pre-season testing: Despite a broken collarbone, sustained in a Phillip Island test crash last month, 2001 and 2006 champion Troy Bayliss took his all-new factory Ducati Xerox 1098 F08 to the fastest lap of last week’s Losail tests, a 1:58.8, set on the final day.

“I’m pretty happy with how things have gone” declared Troy. “We had a brand new bike 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. I’m also pretty positive about my condition and I think I can say I’m pretty much back to normal.”

Hot on his heels was fellow Aussie Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia), the 1996 and 2005 World Champion, who set a 1:59.0.

“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. With what we found here today, I would be happy to go and start the championship tomorrow”, declared Corser.

His time was matched by Italian Lorenzo Lanzi (RG Ducati) on his privateer machine, while Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) notched up a 1:59.3.

“It has been good to test so close to the start of the season and things went well with the bike. We only really had one type of tyre to test but I think when we get the real race tyres, we will be ready to go”, said Haga.

Ruben Xaus (Ducati Sterilgarda Go Eleven) was on good form, and was joined on 1:59.5 by Gregorio Lavilla (Paul Bird Racing Honda), who returns to World Superbike for the first time in four years. Bayliss’ team-mate Michel Fabrizio recorded a 1:59.6, ahead of Max Biaggi (Ducati Sterilgarda Go Eleven) who could not quite get below the 2:00 mark.

“I’m not completely satisfied by the results of this test and I haven’t reached a good feeling with the motorbike yet” said Biaggi. “After the good testing in Australia I expected to find less problems here, but we learnt a lot, and now we know the work we have to do in Qatar, at the season first round”. Despite this, multi-MotoGP and SBK race winner Biaggi is fully expected to be a threat in 2008, having finished third in his rookie season in 2007.

Makoto Tamada and Regis Laconi (PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse) had some bad luck when they arrived for the tests to find that most of their full spec engines had been damaged in transit and are thus behind in their preparation schedule.

The championship-winning HANNspree Honda Ten Kate team have only been able to put in only three days of testing at Almeria with their new Honda CBR1000 machine, allowing their three riders Carlos Checa, Ryuichi Kiyonari and Kenan Sofuoglu little preparation time for the new season.

The Alstare Suzuki squad from Belgium have also followed the Dutch team’s example by adding a third rider to their line-up and Fonsi Nieto, Max Neukirchner and Yukio Kagayama were able to do all their preparatory work for the new season at Phillip Island.

World Supersport: With ’07 champion Kenan Sofuoglu moving to Superbike, the race is wide open for his successor to the Supersport throne. A full grid of 36 riders includes 19 Hondas, 5 Yamahas, 4 Kawasakis, 4 Suzukis and 4 Triumphs. The names include two former Supersport World Champions (Andrew Pitt and Fabien Foret), three Superbike race winners (Chris Walker, Garry McCoy and Pitt), two Superstock champions (Didier Van Keymeulen and Lorenzo Alfonsi), a 125 Grand Prix World Champion (Arnaud Vincent) and a strong British contingent (Jonathan Rea, Tommy Hill, Craig Jones and Walker). New to the series in 2008 after a gap of a couple of years is British manufacturer Triumph, with Garry McCoy lining up on the 675cc triple.

Pre-event media activity: The pre-event media activity for the Qatar Round took place on the Wednesday morning at the broadcasting headquarters of Al Jazeera Sports Channel in Doha. Troy Bayliss, Carlos Checa, Max Biaggi, Regis Laconi and Fonsi Nieto visited the channel for a Meet & Greet with Al Jazeera representatives and a group of national and international media. Al Jazeera Sports is a popular Arabic-language sports channel launched in November 2003 by the well-known Al Jazeera network. It has quickly become the most popular sports channel in the Middle East and will cover this weekend’s Superbike event.

About the Losail International Circuit: Losail International Circuit in the only circuit in the region with both FIA and FIM homologation licenses for car and bike racing. The state-of-the-art circuit, which was inaugurated on October 2004, is fully equipped with the latest facilities and services. 1000 workers took just under one year to build it at a total cost of $USD58million. The circuit is 30 Kilometers from Doha International Airport. It measures 5.380 km, including a main straight of 1068 m, and has a total of 16 turns, 10 right and 6 left. The track is surrounded by artificial grass to prevent sand from blowing onto the tarmac. In 2007 permanent lighting was installed at the circuit for outdoor races.

Lap records: Race Max Biaggi (Suzuki) 1m59.194s (2007); Superpole Troy Corser (Yamaha) 1m58.402s; Best lap Troy Corser (Yamaha) 1m58.402s (2007)

The Qatar Round of the HANNspree Superbike World Championship takes place from 21-23 February, Thursday through Saturday. The action starts on Thursday and Friday with World Supersport and World Superbike free practice and qualifying both days, followed by WSBK Superpole on Friday at 16.00. The two 18-lap Superbike races are scheduled to run on Saturday at 12.00 and 15.30, with the 18-lap Superbike race in between at 13.20 local time.