Having been outpaced by Yamaha pairing Troy Corser and Nori Haga on the opening two days of the World Superbike test at Losail, Troy Bayliss powered to the top of the times on the final day of the winter test.

Upping his pace on the final day, Bayliss put in a quick lap of 1min 58.1secs on race tyres towards the end of the test which saw him jump ahead of Haga on the timing screens.

"We're making good progress, the last couple of days we've been trying so many different things and seeing where we can go with this bike," he said. "Sometimes it's frustrating because I want to go fast, like everyone else, but when the other guys were going fast we were still on old tyres and working on the settings. After lunch today we found a bit of a way and were happy, so we decided to throw a few tyres at it and the times were coming good.

"That's the fastest I've ever been round here by about half-a-tenth and I did that time on a 999 with a qualifying tyre. I did about ten laps on the same tyre, mostly in the mid-58s, but I had to ride really hard to get those lap times and I'm still not so confident with the back of the bike. But now I can relax knowing we're going in the right direction and enjoy my Christmas until our next test at Phillip Island at the start of January."

New team-mate Michel Fabrizio was exactly a second behind in an encouraging fifth place on his first outing with the factory team.

"This test was my first time with the factory team and I have to say I'm really happy with the guys and the way they work," he said. "As for the test, I would say it went well. Today I did a 59.1s lap and I was looking to go better with the best development tyre left for the end, but we had a small problem and I was disappointed I couldn't improve my time.

"I'll leave it to the others to judge my performance but I personally wanted to do more! The 1098 is a fantastic bike, but we've got a long way to go and I still have to get to know it better."