Ducati News Today

New Althea Ducati hire, Carlos Checa posted the fastest time during the first day of official testing for the 2010 World Superbike Championship season at Phillip Island, Australia, site of next week’s opening round. Checa is taking well to the V-twin and in fact Ducati took 3 of the top 4 fastest times.

Factory Xerox Ducati’s, Michel Fabrizio, was 2nd fastest, with Leon Haslam on his Suzuki a few hundredths faster than 2009 series runner up Noriyuki Haga.

Carlos Checa 1st:- “A very good start, quite positive. We didn’t expect this performance this early and especially not at this track, which is not easy. But we know that the Ducati can work quite well here and we arrived in Phillip Island after a quite good job in testing at Valencia. The team’s understanding of the bike is good, and also they helped me a lot to understand how to ride this bike in the right way. The feeling on the bike is special and so far it is a good experience to ride it.”

Michel Fabrizio 2nd:- “We went quite well but the pace of Carlos Checa was very, very fast. I have a new engineer and we are working well. We made things better as we changed more and more on the bike but we just ran out of time in the afternoon session. We did not so bad, and I am sure we can improve tomorrow if the conditions remain good.”

link: World SBK

2010 World Superbike Phillip Island Test – Day 1
1 7 Checa C. (ESP) Ducati 1098R 1’31.959
2 84 Fabrizio M. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’32.349
3 91 Haslam L. (GBR) Suzuki GSX-R1000 1’32.484
4 41 Haga N. (JPN) Ducati 1098R 1’32.518
5 65 Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR 1’32.544
6 67 Byrne S. (GBR) Ducati 1098R 1’32.671
7 76 Neukirchner M. (GER) Honda CBR1000RR 1’32.735
8 3 Biaggi M. (ITA) Aprilia RSV4 1000 F. 1’32.832
9 96 Smrz J. (CZE) Ducati 1098R 1’32.912
10 57 Lanzi L. (ITA) Ducati 1098R 1’32.979
11 52 Toseland J. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1 1’33.135
12 50 Guintoli S. (FRA) Suzuki GSX-R1000 1’33.190
13 66 Sykes T. (GBR) Kawasaki ZX 10R 1’33.222
14 11 Corser T. (AUS) BMW S1000 RR 1’33.299
15 35 Crutchlow C. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1 1’33.444

The 2010 season begins next week, Sunday February 28th at Phillip Island.

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