Max Biaggi and Nicky Hayden were back in action today (Thursday) for the first of a scheduled three-day test at the picturesque 4.4km Phillip Island circuit situated south of Melbourne, Australia.

Both riders continued the development and testing work on their 2005-spec Honda RC211V’s in preparation for the 17-round 2005 season that starts in just under seven weeks in Jerez, Spain on April 10th.

Hayden had a good day and circulated the undulating circuit in his fastest ever time. The 23-year-old American put in this time using last year’s Michelin race tyres on the ’05 spec machine. His team mate Biaggi put in 96 laps – another busy and highly constructive day working with his new team providing vital feedback to HRC engineers.

Nicky Hayden - 97 laps. Best lap: 1m 30.530s - "We've had a really positive day today. I've managed to get my best ever lap around here and we're still on last year's race tyres. We've re-conformed a lot of settings with the new 2005 machine after three days in Malaysia last week. The Phillip Island circuit has always held a problem for me getting onto the start and finish straight, in the past I've been sliding around so today we concentrated on trying to solve that problem and just about did. For the next two days I'm going to work on my lap time and try and find some speed. Today proved the new 2005 machine is a definite improvement and Honda's work has paid off."

Max Biaggi - 96 laps. Best lap: 1m 30.652s - "We enjoyed good conditions today and continued our work, it's definitely a case of 'work in progress' in the Repsol Honda pit garage. The lap time today could have been better but we're here to improve the race set-up. We have a new group of people and the Honda engineers need information and feedback and that's what today was about and we were able to continue the work from Sepang last week. I'm convinced the Repsol Honda team is the best team and we will be making life hard for the rest this season as we try to steal the championship back."