Alstare Ducati's Carlos Checa thinks his crash at Phillip Island's Siberia corner in this morning's first World Superbike free practice sessions was one of the biggest of his career and left him feeling dizzy.

Checa put in only seven laps before being caught by the same corner that spat out Tom Sykes in pre-season testing and says he was lucky not to break any bones in the crash.

"I was looking forward to today and improving the bike after the official tests, but things didn’t turn out how I wanted. This morning, after only seven laps, I crashed exiting Siberia. It was one of the biggest highsides of my career and I think I went up a long way before hitting the track. I was lucky not to break anything but I hurt my left shoulder and my right foot, which is a bit of a problem because I use the rear brake quite a bit," said the former champion.

"The crash ended the session for me, but fortunately I was able to get out in the afternoon, put in some laps and get a time. Once again, I completed seven laps and ended 12th fastest overall.

"It was a shame because, up until the crash, we had been heading in the right direction with the bike once more. We’d changed the set-up just before the crash, but we’ll have to look at the telemetry before we draw any conclusions. In the afternoon we went back to the original set-up - the one we’d used in testing - to make sure of a decent lap time."