Image: Russell Colvin.

Words: Russell Colvin

Yamaha Racing Team’s Daniel Falzon says yesterday’s first day of Motul Superbike World Championship (WSBK) pre-season testing was an extremely difficult day given the weather conditions, which saw 30-plus km/h winds at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.

Falzon, who posted the 21st quickest time with a 1m34.069s in the second two-hour session began Monday on the back-foot after he hit the deck in the first session when he crashed at Southern Loop.

“I just went into turn two and had a strong tail-wind and ran a bit wide onto the dirty part of the race track and lost the front,” Falzon told CycleOnline.com.au.

While the former Australian Supersport champion did fall, he and the Queensland-based Yamaha team did make progress towards the end of the first session. However, the 23-year-old South Australian had another crash in FP2, setting him back further.

Falzon had just put in three of his best sectors, but got a bit ‘throttle-happy’ and sent himself over the bars. Thankfully, there wasn’t any considerable damage on the #25 Yamaha YZF-R1M machine nor himself.

“It wasn’t a good day, but the main thing is we know which direction we want to go in for today,” added Falzon this morning. “Thanks to the guys at YRT for fixing the bike so quickly and having me back on track. Today is a new day, so we’ll see what we can do.”

This weekend’s opening round of WorldSBK will be a challenging one of sorts for the domestic factory Yamaha team, with Falzon and teammate Wayne Maxwell both on lower specification Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) bikes, also contesting the national opener during the round.