By Trevor Hedge At Phillip Island today World Superbike teams Alstare Corona Suzuki (Corser – Kagayama), Yamaha France (Abe – Gimbert – Nakatomi) and Foggy Petronas (Martin – Jones) were joined on track by the dominant American Superbike team, Yoshimura Suzuki, with #1 rider Mat Mladin. Mladin and Corser were immediately the pacesetters and were putting down 1:34 laps within minutes of hitting the track. Both also entered the 1:33 bracket during the day with Corser on Pirellis unofficially the quickest at around 1:33.6 with Mladin a couple of 10ths from that mark on Dunlops. Mladin’s day ended early in the afternoon, however, after the Sydneysider had a high-speed tumble around the back of the circuit while on an out lap. The Yoshimura squad only had one of its 2005 bikes fitted with some 2006 kit parts for testing as the team’s 2006 full factory bikes are still on their way from Japan to America. Thus this afternoon Mladin’s pit crew went about the task of starting with a bare frame and building him another motorcycle out of bits salvaged from the crashed bike along with new parts where needed. Mladin scored some bruises and a gash in his arm that required a few stitches but expects to be fine to ride tomorrow. If Yamaha is going to be a threat in World Superbike this year then it must be said that on today’s performance that challenge will not come from the Yamaha France team, which fielded Abe, Gimbert and Nakatomi. Gimbert had an off this morning but walked away fine and was quickly back on track. From what we could ascertain none of the Yamaha men even cracked the 1:34 bracket, let alone the 1:33s recorded by Corser and Mladin. Fans of the tuning fork brand better hope Yamaha Italy with Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt can give them something to cheer about when the season starts next month. Norick Abe looked the best of the Yamaha men present today but his R1 was wheel-spinning and then climbing at the rear off the rebound and at times it looked downright ugly to be aboard. The Yamahas did sound nice though… The Foggy Petronas squad was also in attendance with newcomer Craig Jones being given a few tips on Phillip Island’s finer points by lead rider Steve Martin. Making the Yamaha France efforts look even poorer was the fact that on a bike with a 100cc capacity deficit Steve Martin was able to better all the Yamaha riders to join Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki) in the 1:34 bracket today. Turning up with such a capacity deficit has to be hard to swallow but until another run of Foggy Petronas bikes can be produced for the road with full 1000cc engines then the machine has to run the 900cc engine fitted to the production machines. 900cc was the upper capacity limit for three-cylinder engines under the previous World Superbike rule structure and that is why the production machines had 900cc engines. And with no sign of a new 1000cc production bike in sight the chances of that happening any time soon look extremely remote. However the team continues to display good form and often shows up many teams with factory backed race machines from the biggest manufacturers in the world. And anyway you look at it, that has to be seen as an impressive effort. Teams will continue testing this week and we will bring you a further update on completion of Wednesday’s on track activities.