After struggling during the 2007 Australian Grand Prix weekend, and again at a private Phillip Island outing in November, a series of new parts were requested - including a new fairing - to help the GSV-R perform around the high speed, undulating, seaside circuit.

The latest modifications - some of which were successfully tested last week at Sepang - may yet help, but first they need to be set-up. Riders Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen were thus left ninth and tenth on the day one timesheets, just over one-second slower than race-tyre pace setter Casey Stoner.

"Today has been quite a tough day, but we have certainly made advances," said Capirossi. "We set out to get a good base setting for the bike and we have improved it over the day, but we still have quite a way to go. We have lots of stuff to test on the bike and we started to do that today but we still have a lot of work to do over the next two days. My crew worked really hard today and because of them we have made a lot of progress, the bike is improving all the time, but as I have said before this is a difficult track for the Suzuki so we have lots to do!"

"It's good to be back in Australia to test again, although we could do with it being a bit warmer," added home star Vermeulen. "I got a lot of laps in today as we need to get through as much work as possible here this week. The Factory has certainly acted on the information Loris and I gave them towards the end of last year, but before we can thoroughly test the new parts we need to get the settings right, and like Loris I spent a large part of today sorting those out. I know there is more to come over the week and I hope we will improve dramatically on those times and positions."

Testing at Phillip Island continues on Thursday and Friday.