Tyco Suzuki’s John Hopkins has taken positives from his four days’ testing at Cartagena and says he is now comfortable with the GSX-R1000 after being off a racebike for more than a year.

Although the team are not publishing official times, Hopkins was clocked regularly in the low 1’35s bracket during the test and has found a good base setting he can take into the season, which starts over Easter.

“I think the test was really positive. We definitely achieved what we aimed to achieve, which was to get comfortable on the bike again and get myself back up to speed. With so long away from racing I didn’t have extreme expectations at Cartagena, but we met every expectation that I had set myself and maybe a bit more, and the base setting on the Tyco Suzuki was really good,” said Hopkins.

“The boys did a great job with the bike right off the bat. We hardly changed anything over the course of the four days. Yeah we made some minor tweaks and adjustments to smooth things out, which helped me to lower my lap time on each of the four days – so yeah it was very successful. It’s a great team and I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with guys from Northern Ireland so it’s been really positive.”