The Castrol Honda World Superbike team has completed a two-day test at Miller Motorsport Park near Salt Lake City in the USA ahead of this weekend’s fifth round of the 2011 World Superbike championship.

The team nominated the 4.907km circuit as its test track for the 2011 season and riders Jonathan Rea and Ruben Xaus used the test over Sunday and Monday to test new parts for their CBR1000RR machines, including a new swingarm and suspension components.

The test was affected by bad weather over Utah, which restricted the number of dry laps and left the Miller circuit dirty and lacking in grip. Despite the conditions, the Castrol Honda team was able to make progress in machine set-up and will now complete its preparations for the weekend’s racing.

The fifth round of the 2011 World SBK series will take place at Miller on Monday 30 May, which is Memorial Day in the USA and a public holiday. The two World Superbike races will be supported by round three of the AMA Pro National Guard Superbike championship at the circuit which lies 56km to the west of Salt Lake City, state capital of Utah.


Jonathan Rea -110 laps

We nominated Miller as our test track this year because last season we really struggled with bike set-up. I really enjoy riding here in America but the bumpy nature of the circuit makes it very difficult to find the optimum settings for the bike. My team have pulled out all the stops though, and we had a lot of new items to test. The weather wasn’t on our side, so the track conditions were pretty dirty out there. I found a better feeling for corner entry with a new swing-arm and this really helped the feeling when the tyre life starts to drop. I also had some new suspension items to test and, while we found some positives, it will take more time to get it dialled in properly. We are in much better shape now to start the weekend and as always we will do our best.


Ruben Xaus - 112 Laps

We know that Miller has some difficult features because it’s very bumpy due to a lot of cars using this track. We experienced a lot of chatter on the first day which we struggled to find a solution for. I tried to adapt my riding style a little to improve the lap times but unfortunately had a small crash in the afternoon which stopped our progress. The morning of the second day we worked hard to improve the set-up and lap times in between some pretty bad weather conditions and in the end found something better. We tried a new brake system and a softer chassis which made a really positive step forward, as well as helping me find a longer life for the tyres, which is really important for this track. I'm pleased to say that I finally found a good base set-up for the race weekend so hopefully I can help to push the whole team forward.

Ronald Ten Kate – team manager

We brought a lot of new parts to this test which included a complete new swing-arm and different front forks. In the few dry hours we had over the two days we set them up as best we could and everything was quite positive. However we really needed more time to test on longer runs to get a precise set-up and fast lap time. It's really a pity the weather was what it was, however we can take the progress made from this test into the race weekend without any hesitations, as the new parts were simply a lot better. Despite the weather and restricted track time, I'm still positive about the overall results of the test and we look forward to Saturday’s first practice session.



2011 World Superbike Championship, round five, Miller Motorsports Park, USA (GMT -7hrs) – schedule (local times):

Saturday 28 May

11.30 Free practice (60 min)
15.30 Qualifying practice (60 min)


Sunday 29 May

10.45 Qualifying practice (45 min)
13.45 Free practice (45 min)
15.00 Superpole 1 (14 min)
15.21 Superpole 2 (12 min)
15.40 Superpole 3 (10 min)


Monday 30 May

09.20 Warm-up (15 min)
12.00 Race 1 (21 laps – 103.047km)
15.30 Race 2 (21 laps – 103.047km)