Toseland closes in

Troy Bayliss set the pace again on day two at the official Pirelli Qatar test after slashing nearly two seconds off his best laptime.

Improved track conditions gave all the top riders the opportunity to improve their lap times with Toseland jumping up to second fastest with a lap time of 1.59.1, 0.2 behind Bayliss.

Kawasaki’s Fonsi Nieto shocked his rivals by setting the third fastest lap having clearly found benefits from the latest generation Ohlins suspension.

Fourth place went to Troy Corser who backed up his strong day one performance, whilst making continued improvements to the 2007 Yamaha R1.

Lorenzo Lanzi improved his best lap by a full second, but slipped to fifth fastest onboard his Ducati 999.

Max Biaggi ended the day a long way down the order in sixth, but was actually the biggest improver of the day after taking 2.4 seconds of his best lap. Biaggi is continuing to make significant improvements to the 2007 Suzuki GSXR-1000 and given his final day form at last months Valencia test expect fireworks from the Italian on day three.

WSB

1. Troy Bayliss (Ducati) 1’58”9;

2. James Toseland (Honda) 1’59”1;

3. Fonsi Nieto (Kawasaki) 1’59”5;

4. Troy Corser (Yamaha) 1’59”7;

5. Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati) 2’00”3;

6. Max Biaggi (Suzuki) 2’00”4;

7. Regis Laconi (Kawasaki) 2’00”6;

8. Nori Haga (Yamaha) 2’00”6;

9. Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki) 2’00”7;

10. Roberto Rolfo (Honda) 2’02”2.

WSS

1. Broc Parkes (Yamaha) 2’03”3;

2. Gianluca Nannelli (Ducati) 2’03”4;

3. Kevin Curtain (Yamaha) 2’03”9;

4. Fabien Foret (Kawasaki) 2’04”7;

5. Pere Riba (Kawasaki) 2’06”3