Troy Corser on the factory Yamaha was the fastest with a lap time of 1:59.627 followed by Troy Bayliss on the Xerox Ducati in a time of 1:59.853.

In third place was Fonsi Nieto, theAlstare Suzuki rider followed by Noriyuki Haga in fourth on the other Yamaha.

Fifth place man was Yukio Kagayama with Ruben Xaus in sixth and Lorenzo Lanzi in seventh.

Max Biaggi was in eighth with Sebastien Gimbert and Max Neukirchner rounding up the top ten riders of the day.

The second qualifying session will take place today, with the top 15 riders going forward to the single lap superpole shootout for saturdays races. 

The Ducati team outshone Yamaha at the Losail circuit with Bayliss the only rider to get inside the 1:58 lap time.

Fellow Australian, Troy Corser, was right on his tail on the Yamaha R1 only two tenths of a second behind.

With only two teams remaining for the final test day Noriyuki Haga and Michel Fabrizio were both half a second down.

The two Spanish riders Ruben Xaus on the Ducati and Gregorio Lavilla on the Honda followed, half-a-second later with Xaus’s team-mate Max Biaggi in fourth place.

Biaggi and Badovini both crashed whilst testing but neither of the riders were hurt.

Regis Laconi was in fifth with sixth place going to Makoto Tamada.  Seventh place man was Ayrton Badovini, eighth was Vittorio Lannuzzo and bringing up the rear in ninth Karl Muggeridge.