With wet and windy conditions hindering day one of testing at Jerez on Monday, Kawasaki Racing Team decided to observe their WorldSBK counterparts rather than take to the track with them. With the mid-week planned as their day off, KRT duo Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea decided to ride on Wednesday 23^rd of November to make up for the lack of track time on day one. After his first full day of testing on Tuesday, Tom Sykes caught up with WorldSBK.com to discuss the progress and changes made.

“Tuesday was fairly steady, conditions still weren’t ideal for riding and testing but we did quite a few laps,” said Sykes. “We didn’t take any risks, it was just a function test on two or three parts so it was more about gaining information in case the weather is good in the next few days. So from that point of view, we had a very good day and yeah you know, we’re still finding little things with the new setup but overall it was a steady day.”

Today, Sykes will give a lot more attention to the tyres and how they are working with his new ZX-10RR.

“In Aragon we had some good performances from the hard tyres on the initial lap, and over race distance.” Continued Sykes. “Basically I want to confirm that we are going in the right direction and you know, Jerez isn’t my strongest circuit so just setting up the bike and making myself comfortable to confirm what we’ve done previously. Slowly, slowly we are working towards our final setup to arrive ready at Phillip Island.”

With a new bike, changes always follow. Furthermore, the FIM have confirmed technical changes to WorldSBK in 2017, with one such change being the requirement to run smaller batteries. As a result of running a smaller battery, you have to have a generator and running a generator (which is located on the left-hand side of the bike) means more moving parts on the bike. This creates more inertia, which is something that the Yorkshireman struggles with from time to time. He began the process of adapting to this in Aragon last week and today, he explained in more detail how it affects him.

“Unfortunately the change means I have to go away from my natural riding style, which I would say is more of a racing style,” explained Sykes. “I go into the corners hard and out even harder, so we just have to ride it softly.  For me, it’s more riding than racing and I have to teach myself that and get into the spirit of it. Overall like I said in Aragon, we have to adapt because every year the rules change or something changes, so a little bit more consistency from that side might help but we’ll just try to adapt to whatever’s going on, and at the same time it’s the same for everybody.”