Loris Capirossi ended the first day of testing in Qatar with a best time of 1m58.92s in his total of 45 laps. "I have to admit that it wasn't bad for the first day of testing" commented the Italian rider. "Today we concentrated on different suspension set-ups, in particular at the front of the bike.
The track is in virtually the same condition as it was during last year's GP and I hope that it will improve in the next couple of days".
Ramon Forcada - Camel Honda - (Alex Barros's Technical Director) "We have only been to this track once before, for last year's GP, and
the conditions were completely different back then, both in terms of the weather and the track itself. Nevertheless we began from the settings from October, and continued with the work on the forks which we had begun in Australia. We also tried two new fronts from Michelin and tomorrow we will do tire tests and more set-up work."
Alex Barros - Camel Honda - 1'58.90 (27 laps) 3rd fastest "We didn't do that many laps today, because we didn't have that much fuel, but we still began well.
The conditions are definitely better than when we came here for the race, also because the Superbikes raced here on Saturday which laid some good rubber down on the track. I felt comfortable pretty much straight away, the bike is set-up well and we went quickly straight away, even though 28 laps doesn't give you much opportunity to test too much."