After a year of racing one of Team D’Antin’s Ducati Desmosedicis in Moto GP last year, Roberto Rolfo, from the Piedmont region of Italy, has made his debut in SBK. Rolfo came to Valencia to meet his new colleagues from Team SC and to get a feel for the Ducati 999 that he will be riding in the 2006 championship. Cold, wet weather conditions did nothing to help but Rolfo nevertheless got through a heavy workload and made the most every minute of available time. By the end of testing, Rolfo’s best time was down to 1 m 39.5 s, about 4 seconds slower than the best lap recorded by Lorenzo Lanzi on the official 999 last November. Rolfo responded very favourably to the F04 he was riding. “I just didn’t expect a superbike to be so well balanced! And it goes like a rocket too! I am confident that we can do really well. My objective now is to be up there battling for those first positions as soon as possible.

Vittorio Iannuzzo was also in Valencia with one of Team Celani’s Suzuki GSX-R 1000s. Iannuzzo, from the Campania region of southern Italy, bruised his left wrist badly on the first day of testing. Though his injury prevented him from doing as well as he would have hoped on the remaining days, Iannuzzo nevertheless finished with the same lap time as Rolfo.
Two new riders made their debut for Team SC in the Supersport class. Australian Joshua Brookes, who won the Phillip Island race in 2004, recorded a best lap of 1 m 40.2 s, while Slovenian Luka Nedog clocked up 1 m 42.5 s, the same time as Mauro Sanchini who was riding a Team Gianfardoni Yamaha R6.