Superbikes | Winter Test, Jerez: Tom Sykes impresses with the BMW

The big surprise of the tests at Jerez de la Frontera were undoubtedly Tom Sykes and the new BMW S1000RR which seems to have come out very well (let's take the appropriate precautions of course!): the Briton, after his years with Kawasaki, seems to have definitely not lost his feeling with the fast lap.

On the third outing on the track, after the Miramas tests, but with the Stock version, and Almeria, the Briton clocked an excellent 1'40"8 on the first day, while the second clocked 1'39"9, just before crashing in a violent fall at the last corner, caused by a technical problem.

“If everything had gone smoothly I think that with the race tire I could have reached 1'39” – said Tom Sykes – “At the last corner I had a problem, it wasn't a driving error” explained Tom Sykes, who returned to the track after a few hours with the forklift and a sore arm. “We've just started development, it's the first problem we've had. Tests are also done for this reason, to understand what the critical points of a motorbike are. I had the best lap of the two days in the morning, with a hard rear. At that moment my performance was very competitive. In the afternoon, if everything had gone smoothly, I too would have put the soft tire on like the others, and the track was getting faster and faster. But no problem, we will have time. The bike is already at a good level.”

The BMW, however, does not appear in the final time classification, because both Sykes and Markus Reiterberger lapped without a transponder until almost the end of the tests: in the official scoreboard the Briton is credited with a 1'41"206, with only eight laps on the scoresheet, but in reality there were more.