Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes had to contend with a neck injury on the second day of WorldSBK testing at Jerez after he crashed exiting the last corner in the morning session.
The Huddersfield rider still managed to set a time only 0.410s slower than team-mate Jonathan Rea - who also crashed - while he adjusts to a new engine which has an added generator, something he didn’t have to work with last season.
“I am happy enough even though I suffered with my neck all day today after a crash, while I was riding the bike at least. That took the edge off me a bit but we still did a lot of things with the bike and tried a lot of different set-ups. Jerez is not my strongest circuit anyway but thanks to Marcel, Danilo and all the boys we finished the day very happy,” said Sykes.
“I feel all the information we have from today means we will be strong. We were able to make real progress. We are still struggling in some areas but we will keep working and I feel we are putting in enough laps and mileage during testing to build ourselves a stronger package for Phillip Island and round one.”
Crew chief Marcel Duinker added: “We continued our test schedule from where we finished last November at Jerez. It was not the perfect test back then but we continued well here; we made a good step forward. We know the regulation change from 2016 to 2017 means we have to adapt the bike set-up as well as we can.
“Then it is up to the rider, but we made some fundamental tests regarding new parts and today we put all the good things together. At the end of the day Tom was fairly happy with his speed and consistency. We made a good step and we will continue next week in testing. I am sure after the second day of those tests we will be ready to move to Phillip Island for the first race.”
