Foggy Petronas breaks cover at Donington.

The Foggy Petronas Racing team test programme is in full swing after their latest track outing at Donington Park - the teams first since their demonstration run at the Brands Hatch round of the WSBK championship.

Riders Troy Corser and James Haydon put the FP1 through its paces on a dry day at the Derbyshire circuit on Tuesday - and the results provided more cause for optimism for the team's baptism in next year's World Superbike championship.

Team owner Carl Fogarty was there to view events at first hand and was impressed with what he saw. "I thought the test at Donington went really well and I was pleased with the attitude of both the riders," revealed Foggy. "Troy is saying some very good things about the bike in comparison to the Aprilia at the same stage of development so we can only be very happy. I think we now have a clear way forward for the winter testing programme."

Team manager Nigel Bosworth added to the optimism by saying: "We are still at the early stages with everything but the signs are good. We experienced a few slight problems, as expected with a new bike on a new circuit, but nothing that can't be tackled. The riders still have to get used to the bike properly and when you consider how many changes we can still make, the lap times were really encouraging."

James Haydon was just pleased to finally get out and rider after a frustrating season on the sidelines for the ex-BSB racer. "It was just great - being out there on the track and getting more and more feel for the bike with every lap I did," he began. "There is obviously still work to be done on many parts of the bike but the overall FP1 package is very impressive and can only get better with further development and testing time on these types of areas."

"I feel very positive," stated Troy Corser confidently. "The bike is easy to ride and changes direction well and the engine has improved each time we've stopped and gone back out for another run so that means we're going in the right direction.

"To achieve the type of times (which weren't disclosed to the press) we have is good and although we do need to be faster. I've no doubt that this will come with further fine-tuning and development. I wasn't really concentrating on set up, more so just putting in the laps and running the engine to give the team as much telemetry data as possible," explained the Aussie.