Fabrizio tops timesheets, whilst Haga suffers third crash of the day in Kyalami

The new look Xerox Ducati team suffered mixed fortunes at the first day of the three day test in Kyalami.

Italian Michel Fabrizio ran consistently at the front throughout the day before putting his 2009 Ducati at the very top in the final hour of the test.

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On the other side of the garage, new signing Noriyuki Haga suffered three crashes on his debut for the factory squad. Each crash Haga walked away unscathed but the same couldn’t be said for his Ducati which required a lot of work to rebuild.

Despite the crashes Haga was still fast and was the quickest man on track mid way through the afternoon before his final crash that saw him sidelined for the final 15 minutes of the session.

American Ben Spies continued to show his impressive pace onboard the Yamaha R1 with the second best time of the day after running at the front from the opening laps this morning.

Max Neukirchner was another man that has been fast all day and his third place proves the potential and pace of development of the new 2009 GSXR-1000. Team-mate Yukio Kagayama underlined the potential by finishing fifth fastest.

Aprilia men Shinya Nakano and Max Biaggi were both happy with the development of the bike since their last tests and closed the day in sixth and seventh places respectively.

Ryuichi Kiyonari was the highest placed Honda in eighth with Carlos Checa 11th and Jonathan Rea in 12th on the official timing but the team claimed that this is not correct. Both Checa and Rea had problems with their electronic transponders that record the lap times and the correct times according to the team were a 1m 41.5 for Checa and a 1m 41.6 for Rea, which would have placed them second and fourth respectively.

The BMW pairing of Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus were both pleased with their day one performance with both men just inside the top ten.

Thirteenth spot went to Tom Sykes who was forced to sit out the entire afternoon due to sickness.

 

1. Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) 1m 41.204
2. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1m 41.599
3. Max Neukirchner (Suzuki) 1m 41.713
4. Noriyuki Haga (Ducati) 1m 41.730
5. Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki) 1m 41.755
6. Shinya Nakano (Aprilia) 1m 41.846
7. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) 1m 42.446  
8. Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda) 1m 42.744
9. Troy Corser (BMW) 1m 42.975
10. Ruben Xaus (BMW) 1m 43.274
11. Carlos Checa (Honda) 1m 43.418 
12. Jonathan Rea (Honda) 1m 44.496
13. Tom Sykes (Yamaha) 1m 46.780

In Supersport Ten Kate Honda team-mates Andrew Pitt and Kenana Sofuoglu pushed each other all the way and at the end of the day were split by just 2/1000ths of a second.

Kenan Sofuoglu (Honda) 1m 44.500
Andrew Pitt (Honda) 1m 44.502