All the hard work put in by the PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse Team during pre-season development and testing will culminate on Saturday 23rd February, when the first of 15 World Superbike Championship rounds gets underway for real at Losail, in Qatar.

Makoto Tamada and Régis Laconi, the team’s exciting rider line-up for 2008, have recently completed tests at the 5.380km circuit in the desert just outside the Qatari Capital of Doha, preparing the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R for its first ever competitive outing since the launch of the latest new model to bear the legendary name of Ninja.

competition use already and now Laconi and Tamada - both proven winners in World Superbike and GP racing - will go all out to prove its worth in the first of a total of 30 individual points scoring races. World Superbike is still unique in global road racing, in having two races per raceday, delivering two opportunities to score full points.

The race at Losail is now a traditional season starter for World Superbike, the state-of-the-art circuit now hosting SBK for the fourth successive season. It is an unusual event in the calendar, not least because it takes place on a Saturday, while every other race on the calendar is based around Sundays. Therefore, the first day of practice this ‘weekend’ is on Thursday 21st, Superpole qualifying is held on Friday 22nd, with the two Superbike races on Saturday 23rd.

Losail is by now a firm favourite with the riders, as its flat layout contains some extremely high speed cornering sections, and one of the longest straights on any modern circuit. The whole track is, in fact, almost a kilometre longer than most other circuits built in the last decade or so, meaning that it takes some time for most riders to learn the fastest way around, especially as the condition of the track surface changes sometimes day-to-day.

Laconi and Tamada have vast experience of the Qatari circuit, Laconi from his recent career in World Superbike and Tamada from his time in MotoGP. Laconi took no time in learning Losail back in 2005, scoring two podiums on his first ever visit but this will be Tamada’s first experience of the Losail circuit in race conditions in World Superbike. Tamada is not a rookie to SBK - far from it - as he raced and won as a wild card at Sugo in 2001 and 2002.

Almost 30 full-time World Superbike machines will line up for the Losail race, before the championship heads off to Australia for the second round of the championship, at Phillip Island on March 2.