Samsung Honda’s Ryuichi Kiyonari was just pipped to the post by one one-thousandth of a second from Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s Keith Farmer, in this afternoon’s wet MCE British Superbike free practice session.

But the triple champ is happy with his lap times today but even though he was pushing hard he was conscious of the slippery track conditions. He did want to go faster, but did not want to end up chucking his Honda down the Leicestershire track. Kiyo now wants to keep up his good form and to be at the sharp end, especially going into qualifying tomorrow.

“It was good today, but the conditions were difficult and very slippery so I did not push one hundred percent. But I wanted to push harder but I didn’t want to crash,” said Kiyo, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the circuit.

"It was tricky out there, but it was a good start. This weekend we have already started well and I hope to keep going and keep this position, and I am happy today.”