Crutchlow and Toseland make progress at Phillip Island

Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike riders Cal Crutchlow and James Toseland made a purposeful start to the first race weekend of the season today at the Phillip Island circuit. The riders faced a day of serious heat with track temperatures hitting 45°C. Having now solved the chatter issues that dominated the test last week, both Crutchlow and Toseland spent both the practice and qualifying sessions exploring the limits of the 2010 bike. With significant power increases across the rev range through off-season engine development, this was the first real opportunity for the riders to experience the changes and work on the set up of their bikes in advance of race day. The high track temperatures drastically reduced grip on the track surface, causing Toseland to lose the back end of his R1 in turn 11, becoming one of seven riders to fall in the session. He was unhurt and came back out on his second bike. One of the developments of the bike for 2010 include a lighter carbon fuel tank, this was changed to the heavier 2009 tank for today's sessions, seeming to help eliminate the chatter issue. Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (10th 1'33.038) "I think we've worked hard and got rid of the chatter problem. The 2009 parts that we've used seem to have helped us in that way. The tank and the seat unit seemed to have stopped the chatter now. If you look at our times, although we're not initially fastest straight away we've got consistency across the sessions. We've got some more areas to work on and I'm looking forward to making the bike even better tomorrow. We've got a good direction to work in, it was just a little unfortunate that the track temperature was so hot today. Even so we were still doing the same times as Ben's race pace from last year. Hopefully it will cool off over the next couple of days and work better for us."