Tamada, in his first WSBK season, was quick right from the off in the session and may have gone quicker were it not for a red flag halting proceedings later on.
The Japanese rider has had success in WSBK races before: He won three World Superbike races while he was racing for Honda in the All Japan series.
He won those the races as a wild card, beating the likes of
Colin Edwards and
Troy Bayliss at the Sugo circuit in Japan in 2001/2, before moving on to
MotoGP with Honda, winning two GP's.
The PSG-1 team have struggled to get a handle on the new ZX10 superbike in the opening rounds, but after a productive test at
Jerez, Tamada is much closer to the front here in Holland.
"Im clearly satisfied with the day," admitted the Japanese rider. "The set-up we have found gives me more confidence and pushing hard has become extremely amusing"!
As for Laconi, well the mercurial Frenchman who has won races for Aprilia and Ducati in the championship was also on the pace but suffered a fall in the latter stages that left him scratching his head somewhat.
"I am struggling to explain the crash, even to myself," Laconi revealed. "I had been suffering some bad chatter but was not really pushing too hard when the bike just unseated me.
"Tomorrow I will try a new swing-arm made by Steve Harris that will hopefully solve the chatter problem."
The crash meant Laconi could not improve upon a time only good enough for 16th place.
