After a seven week layoff, Troy got back on his R1 Yamaha and ended quickest overall at the end of the first day of the Qatar Top Teams test.

He was the only rider to go under two minutes today - and that was on his 2007 bike! Strong winds buffeted the riders this morning and sand and dirt was blown across the track, making like difficult for all concerned.

Troy Corser: "I wasn't pushing hard at all today, just trying to getfamiliar with my bike and putting in the laps after some time off the bike. It was very windy this morning and a lot of sand and dirt was blown across the track, so I took it fairly easy. We tried some tyres today that we didn't have time to try during the season and some worked pretty well and some didn't".

"I went out on the 2008 bike for just a few laps at the end of the day, just to run the engine really and the only thing I can say about it at the moment is that it felt a bit higher and that affected the weight transfer. The chassis felt a bit different also, but until we paut in more laps and start looking at the data, it's difficult to say much about it. We'll carry on more testing tomorrow and the day after, but considering this is the first day on the bike after seven weeks or so, I'm pretty happy".

Best Laps
1 Corser (Aus-Yamaha) 1'59.6,
2 Haga (J-Yamaha ) 2'00,
3 Bayliss (Aus-Ducati ) 2'00.6,
4 Nieto (E-Suzuki) 2'01.0,
5 Fabrizio (I-Ducati)  2'01.6,
6 Kagayama (J-Suzuki) 2'01.9,
7 Sofuoglu (TUR- Honda) 2'02.2