Submitted by Kropotkin on
UK Motorcycle weekly Motorcycle News has a mid-morning update on the current tests at Qatar, and so far, the trend of fast times set at previous tests seems set to continue. The test is only half a day old and already, two riders have cracked Valentino Rossi's lap record set during the 2006 race. In a foretaste of what looks like being another great season, those two riders were former champion Valentino Rossi, and current champion Nicky Hayden. Hayden even succeeded in taking 3/10ths of a second off Rossi's record.
The circuit seems to be suffering problems with transponders, as not all times are being registered, even though this is an officially timed event. Hopefully, this problem will be sorted soon.
More to come as the times come in.
~~~ UPDATED WITH SOME TIMES ~~~
| 1 | Nicky Hayden | Repsol Honda | 1'57.067 |
| 2 | Valentino Rossi | Yamaha Factory | 1'57.243 |
| 3 | Colin Edwards | Yamaha Factory | 1'57.322 |
| 4 | Kenny Roberts Jr | Team Roberts | 1'58.212 |
| 5 | John Hopkins | Rizla Suzuki | 1'58.533 |
| 6 | Loris Capirossi | Ducati Marlboro | 1'58.649 |
| 7 | Chris Vermeulen | Rizla Suzuki | 1'58.658 |
| 8 | Carlos Checa | Honda LCR | 1'59.039 |
| 9 | Shinya Nakano | Konica Minolta Honda | 1'59.125 |
| 10 | Alex Hofmann | Pramac d'Antin | 1'59.204 |
| 11 | Makoto Tamada | Dunlop Yamaha Tech3 | 1'59.377 |
| 12 | Alex Barros | Pramac d'Antin | 1'59.629 |
| 13 | Randy de Puniet | Kawasaki Racing | 1'59.756 |
| 14 | Sylvain Guintoli | Dunlop Yamaha Tech3 | 1'59.785 |
| 15 | Olivier Jacque | Kawasaki Racing | 1'59.941 |
| 16 | Dani Pedrosa | Repsol Honda | 2'00.402 |
| 17 | Toni Elias | Honda Gresini | 2'00.405 |
| 18 | Casey Stoner | Ducati Marlboro | 2'00.489 |
| 19 | Marco Melandri | Honda Gresini | 2'00.617 |
| 20 | Shinichi Ito | Ducati TTT | 2'01.488 |
| 21 | Andrew Pitt | Ilmor GP | 2'02.378 |
| 22 | Jeremy McWilliams | Ilmor GP | 2'07.660 |
