Just a week before the start of the second round of the World Superbike championship at Motorland Aragon, Pata Honda, Kawasaki, Fixi Crescent Suzuki and Ducati’s SBK test team completed their three days of private testing at the Motorland Aragon circuit.
While the first two days of testing was slightly hampered by strong winds, the final day [Thursday] was limited by rain showers, however Tom Sykes continued to be fastest rider overall with a best lap in 1’57″2 while testing new chassis new components some engine improvements.
Team mate Loris Baz, who has recently took part in the official pre-tests at Magny Cours with Team Kawasaki SRC ahead of the 2013 Bol d’Or endurance race also found some improvements ahead of next Sunday’s double header.
Tom Sykes said, “I think that my wrist is about 80% and my ribs 98% back to normal, so that was good.
I was able to ride the bike again without too many limitations.
We had some rain in the final afternoon but we had already finished just about everything we had wanted to do at the end of the second day.
We were going to do a couple of long runs on two different settings today but the rain interrupted that.
We have put a lot of laps on our tyres here and we still have all of race weekend to check out the final tyre situation for raceday.
This test has also brought us some benefits in performance.
”WSBK Aragon test unofficial day 3 results: 1.
Tom Sykes – Kawasaki – 1′57″2 2.
Leon Camier – Suzuki – 1′59″0 3.
Niccolò Canepa – Ducati – 1′59″3 4.
Leon Haslam – Honda – 1′59″7 5.
Jules Cluzel – Suzuki – 1′59″8 6.
Matteo Baiocco – Ducati – 1′59″9 7.
Loris Baz – Kawasaki – 2′00″0 8.
Jonathan Rea – Honda – 2′00″0 “The test went really well for us, although I was not fighting for a lap time, just for improved consistency.
I tried to improve my feeling with this track and we made a big step with the front end.
We wanted to concentrate on the rear grip today but it started to rain early in the afternoon, so we did not try everything we wanted.
But what we did try was a big improvement.
We had some new suspension parts, on the forks, and they gave me good support in the front.
I go into corners with quite a lot of brake so I need that.
I also made a step using a qualifying set-up,” added Baz.
Sharing the Aragon circuit with the Kawasaki team was also Pata Honda World Superbike riders Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam, who concentrated their efforts on fine-tuning a revised electronics system for their Honda’s which continues to give them troubles, so the team will also be testing for two days (Sunday and Monday) at the Alcarras circuit.
It’s been a frustrating few days actually because we haven’t been able to move the new electronics on from where we were in Australia in the first round.
The weather today didn’t help either and there’s a lot more work to do before we’re ready to challenge properly next weekend when we come back to Aragon for round two.
Physically, I’m feeling good after the recent operation on the foot I broke last year, so I’m ready to do some more testing before then! said Leon HaslamWhile Jonathan Rea said, “I did a back-to-back comparison with last year’s electronics and it’s easy to see the potential that the new system has.
However, the teething problems we had in Australia don’t seem to have gone away so we haven’t got as much out of this test as we wanted.
We’ve got another couple of days testing at Alcarras next week, which will be really useful.
We’ve also got some good brains working on the system, so we know there’s more to come.