Troy finished with the fourth fastest time on the opening day of the first round of the Superbike World Championship in Qatar, but was disappointed to have suffered a small crash in the morning, untimed session.

The first Superbike qualifying session had been delayed because of two red flag incidents that had spilt oil over a large section of the track and, although the mess had been cleared up, there was still a lot of cement dust on the circuit. It was on some of this dust that Troy lost the front and went down, but fortunately without injury.

His team mate Noriyuki Haga topped the day's standings, with a lap of 1:59.019, almost a second inside the lap record. James Toseland (Honda) was second quickest, with Max Biaggi (Suzuki) third and Troy fourth.

TROY CORSER: I am disappointed with the crash in the morning, but that's the way it goes. Maybe I was going in a little too fast, but by the time I saw the dust I was off! It was right on my line and I couldn't do anything about it.

Fortunately no problems for me or the bike, but it's not the way I wanted to start the season. We did a lot of work on engine-braking in the morning and afternoon sessions and I feel we improved it quite a bit.

The track felt a bit different to when we tested here recently and then this afternoon, when the temperature rose, the grip level dropped. Tomorrow we'll work on the front forks in order to try and improve the feeling of the front tyre, otherwise all is going pretty well. Tyre conservation is going to be pretty crucial in the races, but in that aspect, I seem to be doing better then most at the moment.