Kawasaki's Tom Sykes wasn't aiming for fast lap times during the three-day World Superbike test at Motorland Aragon, even though he ended up top of the tree, rather is was to improve race setup.

The 2012 series runner-up concentrated on evaluating the new Pirelli SC1 and 2 compound race tyres in the 2013 17in sizes and the Huddersfield man says he left Spain happy with his achievements.

“Fastest again and that is all well and good but that is not the aim at the moment. Our aim is to improve on what we have done with the bike this year, and we have done that here, so overall I am happy. The 17 inch tyres seem to work well for me and the Ninja ZX-10R, so that is positive," said Sykes.

"We have a lot of information and we have more tests planned, to we will keep working in a good direction. We used race tyres to set our fastest times and we tried both the SC1 and SC2 compounds, on the front and the rear. The track was a bit greasy this afternoon but we were still able to do nice lap times with the softer tyres. It looks like Pirelli have done a good job with the 17-inch tyres so we are definitely at a good starting point.”

Get the new issue of Bikesport News to read Sykes' thoughts on his 2012 season