Both reigning World Superbike Champion Jonathan Rea and team-non-mate Tom Sykes were ominously fast on the brand new Kawasaki over two days of testing at Jerez without the benefit of qualifying tyres.

Sykes put in a 1’41.0, which is well inside Loris Baz’s outright of 1'40.298 set in 2014 and did 117 laps in total. He also suffered a small crash and a bird strike while Rea was a little further back with a best of 1’40.6 during his 114 laps over the two days.

“Honestly, testing is not my favourite part of the job but it has been necessary to make a really constant effort because Kawasaki has brought many new components for the 2016 bike. It has quite a different character from last season so we had to evaluate many things. The main thing was the chassis balance of the bike and we have some positives from that,” said Rea.

“The engine character is quite different to the 2015 bike as well so we have been working with the electronics to maximise that and make it suit my style. We got through the vast majority of the test items and we are happy because we were able to lap a lot faster than we did during race weekend, with a similar temperature. So that is encouraging.”

Sykes added: “Overall the test was pretty good. We had some issues to deal with but yesterday started well considering the condition of the track early in the morning. Our plan today was to work through a lot of things, some interesting components. All things considered I am happy with the progress of things. I also hit a bird today, and during a good lap! That caught me by surprise and I had to enter the pits because of the impact. The bird hit the screen and then hit me in the front of my crash helmet, right on my visor and chin bar! On the whole, it was a good test and it has set us up to be ready for the next one.”