"I set the third quickest time of the day, and the fourth in the afternoon," confirmed Lorenzo. "It's not bad but to be honest I expected a bit more seeing as I had been really quick here in November. I'm still some way off those times I set then but today we tried a lot of different solutions. I had a crash at the hairpin turn 2, but it had no serious consequences. In the afternoon there was a lot of wind and we only began to lap well again towards the end of the session. Valencia is always the same, early in the afternoon the track is always a disaster!"
Fourth overall on day one was Toseland's nearest title rival; Qatar race winner Max Biaggi - the former
MotoGP star working as hard as ever to find further performance from his Alstare Corona Suzuki as he finished just a fraction behind fellow Italian Lanzi. Perennial SBK hard charger
Noriyuki Haga was fifth on the second Yamaha Italia R1, closely followed by the top Kawasaki of local hero
Fonsi Nieto.
Just two days after his wedding, Ducati privateer
Ruben Xaus sealed seventh while a sterling performance from 22-year-old Alessandro Polita saw the 2006 Superstock 1000 champion end up a highly respectable eighth for Celani Suzuki. Despite great pain from a recently damaged shoulder, Biaggi's team-mate
Yukio Kagayama was equal ninth fastest with the second factory Kawasaki of
Regis Laconi, on a day when some 1.303 seconds covered the top ten.
With reigning champion's Ten Kate Honda also missing the Supersport test, it was left to Fabien Foret, winner of the recent Phillip Island race, to continue his rich seam of pace by setting the fastest time of the first day, a 1min 37.556secs, for GIL Kawasaki.
