2015 is Santiago Barragan’s first full season in the eni FIM Superbike World Championship. Since the season-opener at Phillip Island in late February, the 28-year-old from Almendralejo has scored points on five occasions. However, as he insists, the Spaniard could have finished inside the top 15 in several more races.

During the break between Misano and Laguna Seca, Barragan spoke with WorldSBK.com.

Santi, how do you assess the year so far?
We have had some good races and scored some points. I think I’ve learnt a lot about the sport, the circuits and the Pirelli tyres. But we are a bit stuck with engine performance and that is limiting us a lot. Most teams were at the level we now have at the beginning of the season; while they have continued to make progress, we have been steady, so it is difficult to be able to fight and achieve our goals. We end up having to depend on others not finishing than ourselves making progress.

So what is the difference between your Kawasaki ZX-10R and those being ridden by Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes?
We are losing a lot in terms of engine performance. Our engines are prepared like stock engines, but this is the Superbike category. There is a difference of at least 20 or 30 horsepower. If you look at the top speed readings, we are always 20 to 30 kilometres per hour down. It’s difficult to fight like that.

Then again, there are circuits on which the differences are less apparent. Aragon was one of them; I know that track well and managed to keep up more with the group in front, almost finishing in the top ten (11th place in Race 1). Other than that, it’s difficult to score points with the situation we have at the moment.

How sure are you that things will improve over the rest of the season?
The truth is that a few things happened earlier in the year which hindered our plans, so we continue in the same situation. For the first two rounds in Australia and Thailand we used the EVO bike from last year, as there wasn’t enough time to have all of the new material ready. From Aragon onwards, we were supped to have all of these new parts in order to improve; unfortunately, that is yet to happen, so we are continuing as we were at the start of the season. At this point I still don’t know whether we will improve the engine performance or not.

So finishing in the points is a considerable achievement at the moment…
Getting anywhere is a success right now. It is difficult…more than anything because it’s boring! I want to be able to keep up with people and compete with them, but at Misano it was just impossible: on any small straight, they would pull away from me by a second or more just on pure acceleration, with the bike upright. It was impossible to follow anybody. It results in a long race - or two races because this is World Superbike. You are riding around alone and unable to fight.

Next time out, Laguna Seca will be new territory for Barragan:
It will be an adventure. It’s a new circuit for me and I can’t wait to ride there. I’ll continue to learn and to gain experience – and I’ll have to learn quickly!