Thankfully it was Cycle News editor Paul Carruthers, as he pulled a Laurence Fishburne on me, rolling off early. Actually, he was on the inside line and figured we didn’t need to be inches apart at 200kph in case anything went wrong. Sensible Chap. For the next lap I made myself as wide as possible, resorting to everything except sticking my boot out to keep him behind me. Banging off the rev limiter and lofting the front wheel out of the turns, I rode harder than I have in a long while, the R1 unfazed by my meager efforts.

Entering the front straight it was over, Paul got a better drive and rode on by as I saw my reflection in the mirrored visor for the last time. I did my best to hang on and pushed even harder, but by the end of the session he was gone and I was circulating the Eastern Creek racetrack alone.

The occasion was the World Press launch of Yamaha’s new R1, and with two days of riding, split between track and street, we were able to get plenty of seat time to justify flying half-way round the world. Yamaha had budgeted a rest day for us to get acclimatized to the time difference, and with 40°C air temperatures at the track, I felt happy to be rested. The R1 on the other hand, was totally oblivious to the heat and ran just as hard at the end of the day as it did at the beginning.

There is no doubting that the war raging in the litre-bike this year is as hot as the Eastern Creek track surface. And, with the Suzuki GSX-R1000 firmly in everyone’s sights, all the new models have now made their intros. I haven’t ridden the Honda yet, but did ride the Kawasaki. There are certainly a number of differences between the ZX-10R and the R1, but it is impossible to simply say which is better without a comparison test.