To absolutely no-one's surprise, Althea Ducati's Carlos Checa has drawn first blood in the opening World Superbike free practice at Phillip Island, beating Max Biaggi by two-tenths of a second in a session which saw both Tom Sykes and Hiro Aoyama crash unhurt within two corners of each other.
Checa made a slow start to the 45-minute period but soon got into the groove and nicked top spot from Kawasaki's Sykes who had set the fastest lap of 1'32.478 before crashing at Honda corner and falling foul of the new one-bike rule. He only managed to turn another couple of laps and had to watch as he dropped to fourth in the standings.
Aprilia's Biaggi, meanwhile, twice set the fastest first sector but couldn't keep it together for a whole lap and didn't better Checa's 1'31.973 set with 15 mins left. The Roman Emperor settled for a 1'32.161 which kept him ahead of Effenberg Ducati's Jakub Smrz in third and meant Checa was the only rider under the 1'32 barrier.
Jonathan Rea, on the new Honda Fireblade, came out all guns blazing but found himself right down the order until there were only ten minutes left and he found some pace to grab fifth ahead of the second Effenbert bike of Maxime Berger with his team-mate Sylvain Guintoli right behind.
Joan Lascorz, on the second factory ZX-10R took eighth with Michel Fabrizio ninth and Marco Melandri, who is still looking for more confidence and less chatter in the front of his works BMW S1000RR, rounding out the top ten. There were five 1198s in the top ten as Nico Canepa also made it into the first string.
Parkingo Aprilia's Chaz Davies, who battled illness during the official test, was the next best of the Brits in 14th, just ahead of Aoyama, while Leon Camier's Fixi Suzuki ended up in 17th just ahead of his temporary team-mate Josh Brookes.
Heroic Eugene Laverty managed 16 laps with his still broken hand and clocked a 1'33.990 which was enough for 22nd and one place in front of David Johnson's Rossair BMW.
