It was clear to all and sundry as soon as they stuck their heads out the windows of their respective hotel rooms this morning that little would be achieved today in the way of fast lap times.  However the Suzuki and Foggy Petronas men still got in some useful testing while the Yamaha men were nowhere to be seen. The problem was not rain but very strong gusty winds that take riders front wheels from under them at high speed places like turn three, around the back of the circuit and the crucial turns 11 and 12 onto the main straight. Not nice at over 250kph.

Mat Mladin only had a couple of things to get through this morning testing various rubber for Dunlop and the fine tuning of some brake components.  The Yoshimura Suzuki men had that done and dusted by 1100 and started packing up to head home.

Troy Corser practiced his starts quite a lot which led to speculation that the improved race electronics package on his 2006 GSX-R1000 might have included some sort of launch control system. However from watching his right and left hands it still looked as though the only thing controlling the launch was the deft touch of Troy's fingers. Corser was satisfied they had achieved what they had set out to do and left the circuit just before noon to fly home.

Yukio Kagayama again put in plenty of track time and would surely have done more laps than any other rider this week, perhaps double the number of laps put in by some.  This afternoon he was the only rider on the track and cut lap after lap in very hot and windy conditions while team-mate Troy Corser had been long gone from the circuit hours earlier.  Something to do with being quicker and carrying the #1 plate earns him that right.

It seems clear that the fastest times have already been set this week and there is virtually nil chance of anyone improving their best times from yesterday.  So at a glance it has Mladin the quickest man of the test with just over half a second on the Pirelli control tyre shod GSX-R of World Superbike Champion Troy Corser. 

Many will read various things into that and will interpret it various ways according to their own prejudices but really with the difference in machine specifications and tyres the difference is of little consequence.  Any comparison of the current outright speed of Australia's most successful active road racers is really a moot point.  For that to be decided we would need machines prepared to the same rules on the same rubber and that is not going to happen at any time in the foreseeable future.  Both men have Australian and American Superbike Championships to their credit and Corser has now also notched up two World Superbike crowns while Mat has been busy in America dominating their domestic Superbike Championship to a level that is unlikely to ever be repeated. So while plenty of armchair experts no doubt already think they 'know' the answer to which rider is quicker, in reality we don't know and are not going to know any time soon. Both riders are very comfortable where they are and respect each other's achievements greatly. They themselves know best of all that any talk of this week being a pissing contest between them is a bit ridiculous.  Although at the same time you can rest assured that the Yoshimura squad and Dunlop will be quietly satisfied that they were the quickest men at Phillip Island this week. But at the same time they also know it is nothing to be swinging from the rafters about as the comparisons are not done on an equal basis.

Steve Martin certainly showed that he should be able to put the Foggy Petronas machine somewhere near the front pack this season and he was consistently much faster than the Yamaha France squad of Abe, Gimbert and Nakatomi.  Briton Craig Jones turned 21 early this week and his four days of lapping Phillip Island on the FPR Superbike will have been invaluable to the youngster as he learns to come to grips with his new mount. The planned race simulation distances for today did not work out for the FPR boys who called it a day just after lunch and headed for some laps of the new 760m go-kart circuit that replicates the Phillip Island layout on the hire karts.

Overall a very useful four days for everyone present and fantastic that Phillip Island was able to provide them with a dry track for the whole duration. The wind did cause a few problems but that didn't stop the teams being able to test the components that they came here to evaluate. 

The Yamaha Germany squad of Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes will be hoping for similar weather when they test at the Island next week.

Jan 17/18/19/20 Testing - Best Overall Times

1. Mladin 1m32.2

2. Corser 1m32.79

3. Martin 1m33.40

4. Kagayama 1m33.68

5. Abe 1m34.5

6. Gimbert 1m34.6

7. Nakatomi 1m35.1

8. Jones 1m35.6