Yamaha Motor Italia completed their first year in the Superbike World Championship yesterday, taking part in a three-day test session at the Losail circuit in the Gulf state of Qatar. The test, organised by championship tyre suppliers Pirelli, was attended by all but one of the series’ designated development teams and gave riders Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt an opportunity to test some new Ohlins suspension parts on their YZF-R1 machines, as well as a host of new tyre options. In contrast to the rain which affected last February’s race at the long Losail circuit, the riders were welcomed by surfaces temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius. Typically, Haga chose not to run a qualifying set-up – recording a best of 2:00.46 on race settings. Pitt did run the soft qualifying rubber on the third day to set a best lap of 2:00.56. Both riders were over two seconds faster than in their last visit to the desert circuit, almost 10 months ago, an indication of the development of both the machine and tyres. Ducati rider Troy Bayliss topped the timesheets after three days of running, with a 1:58.66 lap on qualifying tyres. The next official superbike test takes place at Phillip Island in Australia, between 17 and 20 January. Round one of the series takes place at Losail on 25 February. Noriyuki Haga “The new suspension is very good. The front worked straight away without any changes! The rear is also good and with some changes we should find some further improvement. Now I am happy to go on holiday. We have hardly stopped since the end of the season and even as early as January we are back testing.” Andrew Pitt “It’s been a satisfying test and I was pleased to find that on the few times I was lapping with Bayliss my R1 was a little faster than his Ducati. Certainly the engine upgrades are working good, as is the new suspension. We also fitted a new shock at the end of the test and this will be one of the key development areas at our next test.” Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator) “We have improved massively since the first race of last season, especially with the chassis, and we suffered none of the front tyre wear problems we had when we raced here. We still have to work on the settings of the new shock absorber, but this looks like a step forward. We also tested engine durability here and completed almost 1,600 kilometres without any problems whatsoever. Also at this test we tried various different injection mappings to give a sweeter power delivery and better drive. Over the next few weeks we will build our 2006-specification engines and at the next test we expect to have several new developments, especially with the engine.”