Plenty of changes has been made the to existing technical rules in WSBK and riders recorded almost similar timing with the detune bike at starting of the first of two test days at Philips Island, Australia.
Voltcom Crescent Suzuki’s Alex Lowes unleashed the fastest lap at towards the end with 2 minutes to spare. In the 1st session, Lowes on his Suzuki GSX-R1000 recorded 1’32.806 placing him at 9th position. In the 2nd session however, Lowes clocked a record 1’31.322 putting him on the 1st position overall for day 1 testing. Lowes completed only 47 laps.
Both KRT riders Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea secured top 5 positions on the time sheets. Sykes recorded 1’31.761 at 1st session and 1’31.752 at 2nd session putting him fourth fastest with total of 67 laps.
Sykes new team mate Jonathan Rea was second fastest in overall time sheets with 1st session 1’31.663 and 2nd session 1’31.692 and completed a total of 67 laps.
Still feeling the effects from the previous crash in Jerez due to a traction control issue, Pata Honda World Superbiek Team rider, World champion Sylvain Guintoli timed 1’32.912 at 1st session and 1’32.891 at 2nd session with overall 47 laps putting him at 13th place overall.
Jonathan Rea: “We were working set-up for this track because I have not had the chance to ride the Ninja ZX-10R here before. We just arrived with our Jerez set-up, something we knew, but the set-up for this track is quite different. We got an understanding of the bike again and everything still feels quite new. We changed the balance and everything is going in the right way. We have not been thinking of lap times and when I put a new tyre in this afternoon we were not able to give it a good go. We have been consistent in both sessions and I was one of the fastest guys toward the end, until the session got red flagged. Then everybody went out again on new tyres for the last ten minutes.”
Tom Sykes: “Today has been productive and we have been working in the right direction. We set an acceptable lap time and we were just working on some parameters of the Ninja ZX-10R, getting rid of some variables before we arrive in the race weekend. At the moment we are relatively happy and very relaxed. It is quite windy and that definitely has some influence on the handling of the bike, but it is always the same here in Pi. That has given us something to consider for race weekend but it is the same for everybody. For the position in terms of lap times I am happy enough. We used very minimal numbers of tyres and concentrated on our set-up, continuing on from our winter test plan.”
Image source : WSBK
