By World SuperBikes

If Troy Bayliss' rivals thought that the former double world champion's fractured collarbone, sustained at Phillip Island on January 10, would keep him out of contention at the Qatar season opener then they'll need to think again.

That's because the DucatiXerox rider finished his final test session before the February 21-23 race weekend on top of the timesheets - albeit with 'only' Yamaha Italia testing alongside Bayliss and team-mate Michel Fabrizio on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, Troy's best lap time, a 1min 58.8secs, was the quickest seen during all four days of this week's Qatar test, during which most of the 2008 teams - with the notable exceptions of Ten Kate Hondaand Alstare Suzuki - appeared on track at some stage.

"I'm pretty happy with how things have gone here," confirmed Bayliss. "We've tried different things today with regard to set-up and I managed to complete 55 laps. Lap times were good and we were able to do a long-run after lunch too which went well.

"I'm also pretty positive about my condition, as although yesterday I wasn't feeling so comfortable with the bikes settings, I felt much better today after we changed a few things and I think I can say I'm pretty much back to normal," he declared. "I'm happy I still have another week to get even fitter before next week."

Despite being fastest, Bayliss' best lap time was still 0.7secs slower than he'd recorded in testing at the end of last year (also on the 1098) - but as this was not an official test the riders had a more limited stock of tyres than usual, while the track conditions were also changeable.