The first day of action at the 12th round of the FIM Superbike World Championship ended with Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) fastest in combined practice and his team-mate Jonathan Rea ninth. Rea was only 0.359 seconds off the best pace but such was the level of early competition he was ranked just inside the top ten.

Sykes, currently second in the championship, finished only tenth in the morning FP1 session today but recovered his true pace to end up fastest of all, 0.038 seconds ahead of second quickest competitor, Chaz Davies. Sykes completed 45 laps in total today, working towards finding a full race set-up for the first race on Saturday.

Championship leader Rea was seventh in the FP1 morning session, but could not find the required rear grip exiting corners to make the best use of his Ninja ZX-10R’s full capabilities in the combined timesheets. Although ninth in the rankings his best time was very close to Sykes in what was an intense second practice session. Rea made a significant mid-session set-up change this afternoon meaning his spent some time in the pit box as his crew worked on his machine.

After overnight rains the track at Jerez improved after a slightly damp start to FP1. In FP2 the track was almost up to its best condition under a warm autumnal sun in the south of Spain.

FP3 and Superpole qualifying will now precede the first race of the weekend, which will take place at 13.00 on Saturday 15th October. Both KRT riders have qualified automatically for Superpole 2 on Saturday, which will determine their final grid positions.


Tom Sykes, stated: 

“I am quite happy to be fastest here at Jerez, on a circuit I would not consider to be my strongest one. This is positive for us and we are trying out hardest to improve the set-up again to get a little bit more feedback from the Ninja ZX-10R. In general, I have had some limitations this year and I have not found a cure for them yet which can be frustrating. We are still looking at working on set-up, evaluating some other parameters and possibilities. We will keep working now for tomorrow and Sunday. I feel well prepared even on used tyres, but we need to make sure we are strong in qualifying to set ourselves up for the races.”

Jonathan Rea, stated: 

“It seems like it is going OK but when we are looking for some improvement it is not coming. I feel I am riding well and the bike is behaving itself on the entry of the corner, and chassis-wise in general, but we are struggling everywhere with traction. We are having more spinning than we did here during testing and the electronics are cutting in everywhere in acceleration. So we just need to focus on that. I normally never struggle with traction and everywhere else on track the bike feels quite good. Consistently we are a couple of tenths off where we should be but there is just one main issue we need to focus on.”