Yamaha's superbike riders demonstrated the potential of the YZF-R1 at the opening qualifying session of the first round of the 2005 Superbike World Championship.

R1 riders occupy two places on the provisional front row of the grid with Spanish Formula Xtreme champion Jose Luis Cardoso second and Yamaha Motor France's Sébastien Gimbert fourth. Cardoso's time of 2'1.388 is just over one tenth of a second slower than provisional polesitter Troy Corser (Suzuki).

Yamaha Motor Italia's Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt ended the day ninth and 12th in the standings, happy with the progress made during the day if not their provisional qualifying positions.

All but a few riders had ventured out for the morning's free practice session, which was held in wet conditions. Because of this the track lacked grip in the qualifying session, causing the riders to spend much of their time adjusting their machines' set-up.

Haga's best time of 2'2.687 came on his final lap of the day and took him ahead of defending champion James Toseland (Ducati), while Pitt was unlucky to run into heavy traffic on his final run. The Australian had been lying sixth going into the final minutes of the session, but was shuffled back to 12th as the pace heated up.

Gimbert's team-mate Norick Abe, like Pitt a class rookie despite his considerable experience, clocked up more laps than any other rider (24) as he adjusts to his R1 after spending over a decade in Grands Prix. The Japanese rider finished the day just behind Pitt, in 13th, with a best of 2'2.868.

Second qualifying takes place tomorrow morning, with the afternoon superpole session deciding the final grid positions.

Yamaha Motor Germany riders Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes got their 2005 Supersport World Championship underway by respectively setting the fifth and seventh fastest times in today's first qualifying session at the Losail International Racetrack in Qatar.

Heavy rain meant that both riders completed just a handful of laps in the morning's free practice session and although the track was dry for qualifying, conditions proved slippery as the sand and dirt washed onto the racing line. Curtain set a best lap time of 2'5.196 with Parkes just over a second behind on 2'6.436.

French rider Sébastien Charpentier (Honda) set the fastest time in today's session with a best of 2'3.841.

Sébastien Gimbert (Yamaha Motor France) - fourth, 2' 2.217 "I feel positive about the rest of the weekend. The times are all very close but we have the bike working well and are able to do consistent lap times - at the end of the session I did three fast laps in a row."

Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) - ninth, 2' 2.687 "Not so bad today. The bike is still very new so always we are finding new things to improve. Tomorrow I hope we can find some improvements through the suspension settings. The engine is very fast and has good torque, so if we can make the suspension a little better we can really fight on Saturday."

Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) - 12th, 2' 2.769 "It was a shame we couldn't ride in the morning session as we tried some different settings from the weekend's test. Perhaps tomorrow we will go back to the engine mappings we used last week. Where I'm struggling is in the third sector. I'm losing over half a second there so we will have to look at the gear ratios and how we can make an improvement there tomorrow."

Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France) - 13th, 2'2.868 "We did a lot of laps today and although I am in 13th place the gap to the leading riders is quite small. I am quite happy with how things went. Every session I am learning more about the bike and the championship. We decided not to use a qualifying tyre today so I know that I can find more time tomorrow."