There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when Ducati announced they would be not be fielding a factory team in the World Superbike series in 2011, and much fingerpointing and dark mutterings of the price of signing Valentino Rossi. The general consensus was that this was a huge mistake, and would cost Ducati dearly in terms of exposure in their most crucial market.
But there was no sign of that on the first day of the final test of the year at Phillip Island, less than a week before the first race of the 2011 season. At the end of day 1, a red-and-white Ducati - bearing an all-too-familiar resemblance to the former factory color schemes - topped the timesheets, with a former factory Ducati rider - albeit in MotoGP - aboard. Carlos Checa did not so much as stun the field on Monday, as completely destroy any illusions that his competitors may have had of keeping up, smashing the lap record and taking a 1 second lead over the rest of the field. Ducatis followed in spots 2 and 3, with the Liberty Racing team of Sylvain Guintoli and Jakub Smrz completing the top three, the teammates separated by just one hundredth of a second.
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