Qatar day one: It's Edwards

Colin Edwards continued his brilliant winter testing form today in Qatar with a best lap on day one of the IRTA test session that blitzed Valentino Rossi’s 2006 990cc lap record.

The in-form American, who was fastest on race and qualifying tyres in Sepang last week, carried on where he left off in Malaysia in the Middle East today, as the new generation 800 machines hit Qatar for the first time.

Edwards’ best time of 1.56.774 saw him edge out team-mate Rossi by 0.117s as Yamaha dominated the opening day of the three-day IRTA test in Doha.

Edwards’ time was a massive 0.6s inside Rossi’s lap record set last season when the Italian won the second round of the world championship. And it was only 1.1s slower than Casey Stoner’s 990cc pole postion, set on soft qualifying tyres.

Edwards said: “It’s good to come to another track and be fast out of the crate. We have been testing a lot of tyres for Michelin but I didn’t have the fronts I liked in Malaysia last week, and we didn’t make a lot of progress on the rear. “Maybe they found something out but I didn’t really feel like I did. Yamaha have been working like hell and it’s paying off for us.”

A timing problem caused by a software failure meant all of today’s times are unofficial – with Jeremy McWilliams Ilmor best time not being recorded.

TIMES
1. Colin Edwards 1.56.774
2. Valentino Rossi– 1.56.891
3. Casey Stoner – 1.56.960
4. Kenny Roberts – 1.57.064
5. Nicky Hayden – 1.57.070
6. John Hopkins – 1.57.350
7. Loris Capirossi – 1.57.360
8. Carlos Checa – 1.57.370
9. Alex Barros – 1.57.690
10.Dani Pedrosa – 1.57.700
11. Randy de Puniet – 1.57.730
12. Marco Melandri – 1.57.760
13. Alex Hofmann – 1.57.800
14. Shinya Nakano – 1.57.850
15. Chris Vermeulen – 1.57.900
16. Makoto Tamada – 1.58.408
17. Olivier Jacque – 1.58.740
18. Toni Elias – 1.59.400
19. Sylvain Guintoli – 1.59.700
20. Shinichi Ito – 1.59.966
21. Andrew Pitt – 2.01.667
22. Jeremy McWilliams – 2.07.660