Hydrex Honda British Superbike man Stuart Easton has been out in Spain with the Paul Bird Kawasaki World Superbike team getting some track time in and helping with the ZX-10R setup.

Easton, who has a long association with Bird and won the British Supersport title with the chicken magnate's MonsterMob team in 2002, has been racking up the laps at Almeria over the last couple of days.

"We really needed to get some more development time in with the bike, and I wanted to give Stuart as much track time as he can get before his season starts," said Bird, talking to bikesportnews.com this morning.

"He has been out there doing a lot of laps and dealing with a lot of the niggly things, leaving Broc and Makoto to concentrate on bigger issues, but he has come up with some valuable stuff."

Bird said he hopes to hang on to Easton as a test rider for most of this year, so long as it doesn't clash with any of the Scotsman's British Superbike commitments with Hydrex Honda.