Noriyuki Haga

At Imola last year, shortly after Ducati had announced it would not be entering a factory team for the 2011 World Superbike series, hardcore Ducatisti and WSBK adepts hung a range of banners along the front straight, with such messages as "Senza SBK, Ducati Vale Meno" and "Ducati-SBK, the 46 reasons for pulling out." The withdrawal of the factory team was widely regarded as a terrible betrayal by Ducati, which had built its reputation and much of its brand on the success of its World Superbike team, creating legends such as Carl Fogarty, Giancarlo Falappa and Troy Bayliss along the way. 

Testing continued on Thursday for the World Superbike grid at the Motorland Aragon circuit, and with Carlos Checa having taken his leave early to head to Estoril for an outing aboard the Pramac Ducati MotoGP bike, it was Max Biaggi's turn to top the timesheets. Biaggi took nearly seven tenths of his time from Wednesday, after having spent the session testing new brakes from Brembo. The Italian judged them to be a big improvement, but the increase in braking power made the bike difficult to control on the brakes. More setup work will be required, according to the Italian, which will continue tomorrow.

After lying dormant for much of the summer, the World Superbike Silly Season has suddenly been kicked into top gear at Imola, with a spate of contract signings and rumors emerging from the WSBK paddock over the weekend. At the heart of the various moves and switches has been the fate of the Alstare Suzuki team. Doubts have hung over the future of the team for some time now, with Suzuki apparently unwilling to continue to back the team at their current level. After a meeting last week in Japan, Alstare team boss Francis Batta came away with more questions than answers. "Even though I didn't receive any concrete guarantees, I'm still encouraged that Suzuki showed some attachment to the team," Batta told GPone.com's Claudio Porrozzi.