Team Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra riders Troy Corser and Yukio Kagayama used the first day of qualifying at Magny-Cours working on finding a good set-up for their GSX-R1000 K6 Suzukis.

Both riders have tested at the circuit recently – the scene of this weekend’s final-round World Superbike Championship round - and they started today with the set-ups that had worked well then. But those did not work as expected today and both riders had to try some new settings to post good lap times: Corser finished fifth fastest and Kagayama sixth.

Quickest today was Japanese rider Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha) with James Toseland (Honda) second and Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati) third.

Troy Corser - 5th, 1:40.936:
“I had a little crash this afternoon when I lost the front at the right-hander at the top of the hill but it was very slow and I didn’t hurt myself at all. We started with the set-up from our recent tests here but, for whatever reason, the bike didn’t work the same way. Also, we found a tyre we liked and then tried some different tyres, but none of those worked as well. So we’ll go back to what we know works well and try and improve it. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got really and am confident about race day.”

Yukio Kagayama - 6th, 1:40.950:
“I started with the settings from our recent tests but the feeling on the bike was not as good. Today the track felt dirty and a bit slippery to me and I didn’t want to push too hard too soon. In the morning, with the old settings, my lap times were not so good, so we made some changes to the settings in the afternoon and the feeling was better. Tomorrow we will carry on with this direction and see how much we can improve the bike.”