Bennetts Suzuki’s Sylvain Guintoli is under no illusions about the task in hand as the 2017 MCE British Superbike series prepares to get underway at Donington Park tomorrow as he says there is still setup work to do with the new GSX-R1000R.

Due to personal tragedy, the Frenchman missed out on test time at Cartagena but was able to get in some laps at Almeria, Mallory and at Donington but is aware his rivals are strong and some have a lot of data in the arsenal.

“The team has done a lot of work over winter, and it was good to do so many laps on the base bike early on, as we know it has really strong qualities and we know what they are. I also rode at the factory test in Sepang, which gave me an idea of how the bike works as a race bike,” said Guintoli.

“But with BSB we have different rules and regulations we have to work to, so testing has been about getting the bike to work within those. We have had some good tests over winter and done a lot of work. The Donington test was in really bad weather but it was still important for us to test and see how the bike works in those conditions. We have some bits to still improve, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

“But it’s good to be going racing now. We are going to face some strong competition and teams with lots of data. But we have been improving every time we go out, we’ve set some good lap times, and now we need to do it when it counts.”