Toseland amazed by his Qatar pace

The reigning World Superbike champion, who has switched to MotoGP with Tech 3 Yamaha in 2008, was at the top of the timesheets for most of the night before Jorge Lorenzo beat him by just 0.040 seconds in the closing minutes.

Toseland's 1:54.592 lap was 0.5 seconds quicker than Valentino Rossi's 2007 pole time.

"I know this track pretty well so it didn't take too long to get into the groove of the place even on this bike," Toseland said.

"But to do the time I did and finish second is pretty amazing. I don't think I did a 1:58 on my superbike, so to think I'm four seconds faster than a superpole lap is incredible. And I'm half-a-second under Valentino's pole and that is really encouraging."

Toseland believes the test results prove that he is ready for his MotoGP debut.

"It just shows how much my confidence has grown with the Michelin qualifying tyre because you really have to trust how to get the best out of the extra grip," he said.

"I knew it was a quick lap but it was a little bit faster than I expected. It was just great to see all those great names underneath mine.

"It would have been nice to finish fastest but I'm still happy. I wanted to come to MotoGP and be competitive and I'm showing I can. Now I can't wait for the first race.

"My guys have brought me to this level much quicker than I expected, and hopefully we can convert the good testing performances into the season."

Toseland's teammate Colin Edwards was also full of confidence after finishing the test in fourth place.

The American was delighted with the performance of the latest Michelin tyres.

"With the tyres I found today I did an eight-lap run and on that last lap I did a 1:56.4. And that was with 22 laps on the rear and 26 laps on the front," Edwards said.

"I don't know if a 56.4 on the 22nd lap is good enough to win the race but I'm sure Michelin will bring us something even better for next weekend.

"I know James liked a new Michelin front and I'd tried it before him and I fell in love with it. We're not talking five percent better but it felt 25 percent better. It works so well in the cold temperatures so Michelin has been working really hard.

"To come here and find a front tyre that I'm that happy with and James is also happy with shows we are definitely moving in the right direction.

"At this place you generally always have an issue with front tyre grip because it is such a hard track on the front. But now we don't have any issues and that's credit to Michelin."