Former World Superbike Champion Tom Sykes put in his quickest-ever wet laps during the official Jerez test despite being struck by a virus which hampered his progress in Spain somewhat.

Sykes hasn’t ever been able to make the fast Kawasaki work in the wet to great effect but new, and less powerful, engine spec dictated by the 2015 rule package has enabled him to find some pace in the rain.

“We have worked on a long list of things we had to try. It has been a five-day test but unfortunately on day two I have come down with some virus, which hasn’t helped the job. But we have done a lot of dry laps and understood what we needed to improve and where to go in the future,” said Sykes.

“In the dry we did not get to show our full potential but in the wet I was happy. We have really struggled in the past in the wet and this was the first time I was able to what I wanted to do with the Ninja ZX-10R in those conditions.

“For sure we are not on the perfect set-up yet but we are going in the right direction, because I went faster at this track than ever before in full wet conditions. We did a lot of practice starts as well, to evaluate some material for next year. In general it has been a very constructive test and one that has put us on the right path for continuing testing in 2015.”