Yamaha riders ready to race

From Yamaha Racing

LOSAIL, QATAR -- Noriyuki Haga and Troy Corser (both Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) made their final pre-race preparations for the 2008 World Superbike season at the Losail International Circuit today; the same venue that serves as the championship kick off on Feb. 23.

The Losail track surface was not in as good condition as it was for the team's previous winter test around the 5.380km circuit in Qatar, but the main objective of this showing was to ensure that all the latest equipment would be in prime condition when points become available for real next week.

The team brought four all-new machines and all of the latest specification, but as this was not an official test the riders had to use a more limited stock of tires than usual.

Corser was second fastest rider of all on the final day, posting a 1:59.0, with Haga only marginally behind with a time of 1:59.3.

Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha) was also out testing in preparation for the start of the year, running his latest spec of Yamaha YZF-R1 machine in his one-man team. He set a best of 2:00.7, on off-the-shelf Pirelli control tires. Yamaha's second French WSB team GMT94 did not attend this last pre-season test.

"We tried a few new things with the variable intake settings for example, but only a little bit at this test," Corser said. "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 am catching the 'flu, so it wasn't that much fun on the bike sometimes."

Broc Parkes and Fabien Foret (both Yamaha World Supersport Team) declared themselves ready to take the 2008-specification Yamaha YZF-R6 into competitive action after their final pre-season test was completed earlier today in Qatar.

Parkes was the faster of the two on the stopwatch, setting a best of 2:02.9, with Foret 0.6 seconds from his teammate. Foret, the 2002 World Supersport Champion, found improvements in two main areas of performance and each rider is now ready for the task of qualifying and then racing, at the first round on Feb. 23.