Noriyuki Haga secured a second place for his Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team after another unsettled race day for the Japanese star, with a crash in race one preventing him from a potential double points score at one his favourite tracks. In the first race Haga fell on lap two, after colliding with Ruben Xaus at the slow De Strubben left hand corner, while Corser went on to fight in the leading group for most of the race, only dropping back to fifth in the later stages and finishing 11 seconds from the win after 22 laps.
After finishing regulation qualifying fourth fastest, Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team rider Troy Corser could have expected to make a strong challenge for his 42nd career Superpole win, but a crash late in the pre-Superpole free practice session meant he eventually had to work with his number two machine. He finished Superpole eighth quickest, and now takes a second row start in Sunday's 23-lap Superbike races at Valencia.
Having missed the official FGSport tests in March the Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team had to work particularly hard on the first day of the Valencia race weekend to set times just inside the top ten of the 30 riders who entered this third round of the 2008 season. Corser's best time was only 0.618 seconds from fastest man Max Neukirchner (Suzuki) and put him ninth in a session where the top 15 riders qualified within a second of provisional pole. Haga was tenth, only 0.124 seconds from Corser, as each attempted to match their machine's settings and initial tyre choices against the unpredictable Valencia track surface.