The Pirelli organised test will see a number of the appointed tyre development World Superbike teams take to the Losail circuit in Doha for three days, commencing this Sunday 4th.

The team will be using the test to evaluate a range of new development parts for the PETRONAS FP1 as well as furthering the initial progress made at Valencia a few weeks ago, for comfort factors and bike set-up for Craig’s riding preferences.

Team Manager, Jack Valentine, commented, “It’ll be good to see Steve back on the bike and considering he had kidney surgery in October, is looking remarkably fit. Craig is also raring to go, as demonstrated at the airport on the way here to Qatar when he managed to fit himself onto one of those children’s motorised sit on rides, so we put fifty pence in to get him going! Both the PETRONAS engine development team and the team’s mechanics have worked tremendously hard behind the scenes since the end of the racing season, so it’ll be good to get onto a track, with ideal testing conditions like we have here, to put it all into action and further our development programme.”