Aruba Ducati’s Chaz Davies set a personal best laptime yesterday at the Jerez WorldSBK test, pushing the envelope of the 1’38 barrier and says he feels there was still another half a second in the bike, which would have put him on level terms with Jonathan Rea.

The Welshman set a 1’39.1 in the final dry session yesterday before trying wet setups in the rain today and Davies says a big step forward has been made with the setup even compared to the race where he dominated all weekend.

“It’s been a good test. We’ve been quite lucky with the weather overall and we’ve gone fast, setting good lap times given that our bike is not that much different but our pace has taken a step forward compared with last winter's tests and the race here. I never broke the 1’40 mark before but set a 1’39.1 on Thursday, and I still feel like we’re leaving 4 or 5 tenths out there,” said Davies.

“On the last day, we lapped quite a lot in the wet, gathering some good indications even though track conditions can change quickly here. Now we will keep working on the new parts and overall balance, but our base package is solid.”