FHO BMW's Peter Hickman finished a rain-hit Snetterton Bennetts British Superbike test in fifth on the overall timesheets and says it is still 'early days' with the new M1000RR.

The top-ten times were littered with BMWs and Hickman finished in fifth, only four-tenths off fastest man Christian Iddon.

“The Snetterton test has been quite positive for us and although we didn’t get in as much riding as we would have liked, with two sessions yesterday, but the news is the BMW felt good straight off. If you look at the times it was pretty evident from all of the BMW teams.

“Again, it is very early days still for us and I am happy that I feel comfortable on it at another different track, so that is a big positive after some changes we made at Silverstone.

"Yesterday I didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard and we didn’t go for a fast lap and so it was nice to be in the top five. We had made some changes to test today to hopefully try and improve the pace again, but unfortunately that didn’t happen, so we can move on to Oulton Park where hopefully we can get some more track time in.”