Corser in touch, Haydon disappointed.

Troy Corser was straight on the pace during Foggy Petronas Racing's first day of competitive action at the Valencia World Superbike season opener.

The Australian former world champion finished seventh fastest in the afternoon's qualifying session, with the promise of more to come before Sunday's debut races for Carl Fogarty's new team.

"It is good to get two sessions under our belts and I wanted to stick a couple of decent lap times in early," said Corser, who set the early pace this afternoons. "The bike seems to be handling well and I have just lifted it a little, as the fairing was touching when I was going a bit quicker.

"I have tried a range of tyres and the last seems to be the best so far. The lap times that I set on race tyres were about the same as the other riders and some of them then stuck a qualifier in towards the end," added the Aussie, 0.9secs off Neil Hodgson's provisional pole.

However, while Corser was content, team-mate James Haydon had a frustrating day despite approaching his previous circuit best. The Brit was left in thirteenth place, 1sec behind Corser.

"I am disappointed as I had a difficult day with many problems, some that we had not previously experienced. I have done a lap that was all right, but nothing like I could do," he sighed.

The team also had to come to terms with the new WSBK tyre ruling, which states that a maximum of 13 rear slick tyres can be used on the two days of qualifying, so limiting the amount of crucial tyre testing capacity available to the team.

"The biggest factor has been the new tyre ruling," admitted Nigel Bosworth. "We had discussed it in advance in detail but the practice is different to the theory, although we dealt with it very well. We are working well with Michelin in selecting a suitable race tyre, and we have not used any qualifiers yet as we are saving them for tomorrow morning.

"Troy is looking very positive, but James had some trouble with set-up and was dogged by engine problems," concluded 'Boz'.