After a wet first day of testing on 14th November, Thursday 15th provided some dry conditions for the Kawasaki Racing Team to continue development work on the 2013 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R in Aragon.

Both official Kawasaki riders Tom Sykes and Loris Baz were able to test properly in dry conditions in the final afternoon, with Sykes also doing over 30 laps in the wet on day one, to find greater improvements in full wet conditions.

The team had one main area to focus on in the dry and the feedback from each rider was that the direction of development was a positive one. Despite the weather playing its part to provide some changeable conditions the team feels that they know Aragon so well that, to a degree at least, they can even compare results with previous tests and races held in slightly different conditions.

The next test for the team will be at new SBK venue for 2013, Jerez, on 26 and 27 November, before the winter test ban kicks in for all Superbike World Championship teams.

Tom Sykes:

“I am very happy with the test even if we had reduced track time. We still managed to evaluate a number of things. We have learned quite a bit today and we have definitely improved the feel of the bike in some areas. We have been able to do reasonable lap times and we can do them consistently with good feed back and I hope we can build on this at the next test. There were a few other riders out there today, on different bikes, so that was good because the track surface needed a little bit of use. Even in mixed conditions at Aragon we know exactly where we stand and can still work well and make progress. Also the track surface itself is usually quite consistent at Motorland so it is a good place for testing.”

Loris Baz:

“The test was good on the final day but we could not ride yesterday because of the weather. This morning was not so good either but we had some nice sunshine finally in the afternoon and we did something like 60 or 65 laps. We improved the feeling with the bike a lot, and I was more comfortable on it again. I think this was a really good step.”

Crew Chief Sykes, Marcel Duikers:

“Yesterday it was wet all day, more or less, so we made around 35 laps to improve our bike set-up in those conditions and we found the right direction in the wet to improve our performance, our speed. It started wet in the morning today but in the early afternoon we were able to make proper lap times, because the track was drying well. We worked on our main priority and stuck with this the rest of the afternoon. Even in a reduced amount of time on track we were able to test properly and we found the direction we wanted.”

Crew Chief Baz, Pere Riba:

“It was raining the first day and with Loris we just stayed in the box because the conditions were complicated. After the wet and damp morning today we just worked to keep finding the best balance with the new bike and to understand how Loris feels with it. We tested different things and finally it was good, very positive. He could do his best lap times more consistently so that is good.”

.