JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam believes he took a big step forward with chassis and engine setup at the two day Guadix test and is now ready to start his challenge for the 2017 MCE British Superbike title.

The Smalley rider had two days at Guadix on top of four at Cartagena and spent time improving tyre life over race distance as well as evaluating new components.

“It was six days on track and probably the best we’ve ever had for winter testing. We got through a load of things, improved a load of things and with the weather and number of laps we got in, it was really good. I am happy and confident with what we achieved,” Haslam told BSN at lunchtime.

“At Cartagena, we did a lot of testing with the maps and fuelling and at Guadix we put in a race spec engine and straightaway all that improved. We got through a lot of chassis components, looked a lot at tyre life using hard and soft options, understanding the drop and which components affected that.

“I didn’t go for a one-off lap at Cartagena but my race pace was a lot faster than everyone else’s. We got every lap of all the other guys when they were doing their 12-15 laps on a tyre and we were really strong.

“At Guadix, we made another big step. We were consistently 0.7s faster than the other guys there up to 20 laps so we have made some big improvements.

“For me, it wasn’t necessarily about laptimes, it was about back-to-back testing of components but at the same time we were fast doing.

“Our chassis setting is now fixed, we have an engine spec for the first few rounds and we have plans for upgrades when the 2017 stuff arrives but for the first few rounds I am happy with the base we have got.”