Jonathan Rea and Hiroshi Aoyama, have journeyed to Russia for the first time for this weekends (25-27 August) eleventh round of the 2012 World Superbike championship at the recently completed Moscow Raceway.

The 3.931km circuit lies 77km to the west of the Russian capital and this weekends event marks the first visit of the World Superbike championship whose owners, InFront Motorsports, signed a ten-year agreement with the event promoter last year.

Rea and Aoyama sampled the new circuit for the first time today during an official test, finishing 12th and 18th fastest respectively, with Spains Carlos Checa posting the fastest time ahead of this weekends two 25-lap races.

Jonathan ReaIts always a great adventure and a professional challenge coming to a new country and a new circuit for the first time. I spent yesterday in Moscow at a Honda customer event and it was good to meet a new group of enthusiastic sportsbike fans. I really enjoyed todays test as an opportunity to get acquainted with the Moscow Raceway circuit. First impressions of the track are that its very tight and twisty. Were in second gear for pretty much most of the lap, obviously not for the straights, but its fun! Its very technical and Im enjoying it so far, but for the race weekend the times will be really close and Im expecting tight racing. The infrastructures nice and the tracks quite smoothits a little bit dirty because theres not a lot of rubber down, but were finding the tracks getting faster and faster, so Im looking forward to the weekend.

Hiroshi AoyamaIt seems like the racetrack is a little bit compact, so you have to find a good timing on the bike and also the grip level is not so high. I think its normal that on the first day its a little bit more dusty and many corners are very slippery. Ive already had a couple of near crashes but I think weve started OK and Im looking forward to improving on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Today was quite good weather so Im hoping that it keeps like that for the weekend. For sure, everyone is going to go faster so well have to follow and hope to be in a good position.

Pieter Breddelstechnical co-ordinatorHiroshi ended up strongly this morning and improved his time by three seconds when he went from the harder to the softer compound, and he ended up third fastest. Because of the limited number of soft tyres allocated, we had to work around the setting this afternoon and he couldnt improve his lap time. He actually went faster on the harder tyre, so the position looks worse than it is. Jonathan struggled a little at the end of the day in finding the right direction for the set-upagain this was due to the limited tyre allocation. We had to make a setting on the no-so-good tyre but then a faster lap on the soft tyre was not easily coming. Weve got work to do, but well spend tomorrow analysing everything from today and make a plan for Friday.

2012 World Superbike championship, round eleven

Moscow Raceway, Rusiaweekend schedule (local timesGMT+2)

Friday 24 August11.45-12.30 Free practice15.30-16.15 Qualifying 1

Saturday 25 August09.45-10.30 Qualifying 212.30-13.15 Free practice15.00-15.14 Superpole 115.21-15.33 Superpole 215.40-15.50 Superpole 3

Sunday 26 August09.20-09.35 Warm-up12.00 Race 1 (25 laps 98.275km)15.30 Race 2 (25 laps 98.275km): Leicester 2.30