The Samsung Crescent Racing team have ended their second day of testing in Cartagena feeling confident that the progress they have made already puts them as one of the leading teams at this early stage of the season following a successful day on circuit.

John Hopkins continued to utilise the track time to get a real feel for the new bike and admits that he won't be making any drastic changes just yet as he set the third fastest time having made just a few small tweaks. Jon Kirkham on the other side of the garage believes that the extra experience on the bike has seen him reduce his lap time from yesterday by over a second and is aiming to move even closer to his team-mate tomorrow on the penultimate day at Cartagena.

Hopkins said:

"It has been a good day; I don't really like to make changes for the sake of it especially so early in the game. I do think it is going well but I still don't completely know the bike yet so right now I am still just putting laps in. Once I feel like I know the bike better than I can make bigger changes and will be able to see the real effect, whereas at the moment it would be difficult to determine whether it was giving us an advantage. In the last session we put a new link into the rear, which was negative so we reverted back to what we had previously. But hey, that's what testing is about.

"In the afternoon we ran new tyres and a new system with the front forks, but we had the link in which wasn't as good as the previous one so I had a bit of a push and still did a 1m35.1s lap which I matched a couple of times so that was ok as I know there is still more to come especially when we go back to the original. Tomorrow we have a new front fork system to try and we also want to fit a new swingarm so it is all looking good, I am happy and looking forward to another day tomorrow."


Kirkham said:

"We learnt a lot today and for me it is just getting time on the Superbike after time on the Superstock bike. I feel like I caught up a bit to John today and he is going well, so that's good progress for me. I just need to find some more time on the corner exit as some of the other riders can exit much faster, but that is probably down to me just adapting my style from the bikes I have raced most recently. I am hoping to knock another second off my time tomorrow and then see where we can find more at Guadix."

Valentine added:

"Jon is getting faster all the time which is good considering he has just jumped on the Superbike which can be a bit of a shock to the system after Superstock. He is improving step by step and showing improvement as well as being dead consistent. Hopper hasn't really changed that much as he is happy just getting dialled in still. We did make the change this afternoon which didn't work but he thinks we are where we need to be so I am happy with how today has gone for the whole Samsung Crescent Racing team."