Temp: 20ºC
Weather: Changeable

Yamaha's return to the Superbike World Championship got under way at the Losail circuit in Qatar, with Yamaha Motor Italia rider Andrew Pitt finishing fourth and ninth in today's two races to leave the Middle East fifth in the championship standings.

Not only did the Yamaha prove to be the most popular bike on the grid, with 10 of the 29 riders using R1s, it also proved its outright speed with Sébastien Gimbert establishing the Losail superbike lap record and Pitt leading the early laps of race two. Rain throughout the race weekend meant lack of testing time to find perfect engine and chassis settings meant that performance dropped off as the race wore on.

Pitt finished fourth in an aggregate 18-lap first race. He then led race two before slipping back due to a lack of front end grip. Team-mate Noriyuki Haga finished fifth, also experiencing front end grip problems.

Race one, a rain-stopped aggregate affair with the first section comprising ten laps and the re-start of eight, was won by Troy Corser (Suzuki) from his team-mate Yukio Kagayama and Ducati rider Regis Laconi.

The Yamaha Motor France IPONE pairing of Norick Abe and Gimbert enjoyed contrasting fortunes in the first race of 24 this season, with Abe having electronic gearchange problems during warm-up on the re-start, yet finishing tenth. Gimbert ended his opening race clashing with two other riders to record a DNF after a front row start.

In the second contest of the day, run in dry and sunny conditions, Abe was top Yamaha finisher, in seventh place, after a multi-rider fight for fourth. At the end Pitt led Gimbert and Haga from ninth to 11th places, with Gimbert experiencing clutch slip after what were three race starts in a single afternoon.

After the opening two races, Kagayama leads on 45 points with team-mate Corser four adrift. Pitt lies fifth, with Haga seventh and Abe eighth.

Yamaha's superbike teams will now travel to the Valencia circuit for an official FGSport test on the weekend of 12-13 March, with the following round held at Phillip Island three weeks later (1-3 April).

Andrew Pitt (Yamaha Motor Italia) - (fourth, ninth) "Race one was good for the result but in race two my front tyre felt like it was finished too early. I fought as hard as I could to keep other riders behind me but I had a couple of big front-end pushes and I really didn't want to crash. The speed of the bike is not too bad, pretty much on par with most other bikes. It's a good result though. We always said that we might have to settle for solid points in the opening rounds and that's what we achieved today."

Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italia) - (fifth, 11th) "So far so good but we have some set-up difficulties. The rain interfering in race one was good for us. The front tyre did not seem so suitable in the second race, for us at least. I had a good start in both races, but I was not able to keep positions. This is only the first race so I hope to improve the set-up in the coming tests and to challenge for top positions in the next round."

Norick Abe (Yamaha Motor France IPONE) - (tenth, seventh) "I think today I did not have good luck, especially in the first race. I went fourth then the next lap it started to rain. Afterwards the electronics on the quickshifter broke and I needed to make a pitlane start. In the beginning of race two the start was not bad but the engine was not quite as fast as normal. I finally passed some other riders but if I had more speed I would have taken many more top riders."

Sébastien Gimbert (Yamaha Motor France IPONE) - (DNF, tenth) "It's a real shame because I got taken out by another rider in race one, and in race two I burned the clutch a bit on the start and could not use all the engine power. It was OK to ride on my own but not to pass, as I could not run out of the slipstream on my own."

Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator - Yamaha Motor Italia) "The only thing we can do is say that we are paying for some delays in testing, in terms of set-up. Andrew knows this bike a little bit better than Noriyuki, and the bike set-up is not yet perfect. But we had four finishes and some good points. At this track we have had some problems so we expected some difficulty today."

Martial Garcia (Team Manager - Yamaha Motor France IPONE) "Sébastien made the best lap time and he said he had very good tyres and good chassis settings. We wanted to get a fine start in the first race and except for our bad luck we have had an encouraging first couple of races. We took some points and showed our power - and we have another 22 races."



Yamaha Motor Germany riders Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes displayed true grit to overcome injuries and post top six finishes at round one of the Supersport World Championship at the Losail circuit in Qatar today. The Australians finished the 18 lap race in fourth and sixth places respectively.

Curtain overcame a bad start that saw him end the first lap down in 10th place, but a gritty ride saw the experienced Australian claw his way up to a lonely fourth place by half distance, despite suffering from a lack of front end grip and a shoulder injury sustained in testing last month.

Team-mate Broc Parkes put in a determined ride to finish in sixth place despite the pain of a broken bone in his right hand. The 23-year-old made a good start and ran as high as fourth in the early stages, only to slip back due to the pain in his hand.

The race was won by Katsuaki Fujiwara (Honda) who fought through after stalling on the grid. His team-mate Sébastien Charpentier was second, with Michel Fabrizio (Honda) third.

The next round takes place at Curtain and Parkes' home circuit of Phillip Island on 3 April, although both should be fully fit when they take part in the official FGSport tests at Valencia on 12-13 March.

Kevin Curtain (Yamaha Motor Germany) - fourth "It was hard work out there. We knew that we didn't have a front tyre that would last the distance today and by the end of the race it felt like I was riding in the wet. A few of the other guys went down on right handers, so I guess that most people were having the same kind of problems. But I'm happy with the result, especially after I broke my collarbone last month. It's a solid start to take to the next round in Phillip Island."

Broc Parkes (Yamaha Motor Germany) - sixth "After four or five laps the pain in my hand really started to hit me. I got a good start but as the race went on my laptimes dropped off and there wasn't a lot I could do about it. I had hoped to finish on the podium in my first race for Yamaha so I'm a little disappointed I didn't manage that, but really sixth is a good result considering my condition."