With Aprilia and Yamaha set to do their testing at Phillip Island, six teams (Honda Ten Kate, both BMW teams, DFX Borciani, Alstare Suzuki and Supersonic Ducati who’ll be testing at Portimao today and tomorrow, the Kawasaki team just finished another three days of intense testing at the Spanish circuit of Aragon, after last month’s unofficial test.
Tom Sykes and test rider Katsuaki Fujiwara continued testing the new 2011 Ninja, with Sykes working on lap times and set-up, with a best lap of 1’58.
5, while Fujiwara tried out some new parts.
Also present were the other two official riders Chris Vermeulen and Joan Lascorz, who still are working on regaining fitness, even if Lascorz did a couple of laps at the Losail track in Qatar earlier this month for the world launch of the ZX-10R.
Tom Sykes: “We were pleased with the test and to be this close to the front at this stage was promising.
Overall we had a good understanding of the complete package and we got through quite a few things.
Finding a good base setting was the main objective, but at the end we also tried something a bit different on the bike, and again found quite a significant improvement.
Overall, I am very pleased with the way things went.
” Paul Risbridger: Team Manager: “We got through everything we wanted to try.
Tom and Katsuaki each did good work, with Tom doing more set-up work in readiness for the season, and Katsuaki trying some new general development parts.
The lap times were particularly good for Tom, and we recorded him setting a 1’58.
5, which is very competitive.
The track conditions were reasonably consistent for us and we were really encouraged by the results of this test.
”