McAMS Yamaha’s James Ellison topped the unofficial timesheets on day one of testing at Cartagena’s Pro Test, setting a 1’33.2 on an R1 that is still at the beginning of its development cycle.

The Kendal native was still reshaping his seat foam with a Dremel at the Spanish circuit this morning and has had to install foam blocks on the tank to get his sitting position somewhere closer to being correct but is already around half a second quicker than he was last year.

“We were messing about with seam foam this morning, we haven’t got the race tank as yet. We ave just been trying to get everything right today so when we leave here we know which seat we want, the tank we are going to use, get the thing setup so we can add little things later on and when we get the new swingarm, there won’t need to be any big changes,” Ellison told bikesportnews.com at the track.

“The swingarm will be better for tyre life because of flex but it is the same length. There is nothing we are going to majorly change, just small tweaks. The team have done such a good job to get them built to this stage already.

“I felt comfortable on it from the start. Obviously, there were some small issues as you would expect. We ran around this morning on the tyres were used to run the engine in yesterday but as soon as we switched to the SC0 it was a second and a half quicker. That is the tyre we will probably run all year so it was good to get that feeling.

“It’s about an inch away from being awesome. I have been tucking the front at the apex and we are just trying to figure out whether the bike is popping up too fast or not fast enough, and corner entry, it just backs in a little, so we’re opening the throttle bodies but that is because of the standard clutch as it doesn’t slip.

“The bike needs to carry corner speed to flow and at the moment I am not able to do that perfectly because of that. Engine and chassis are strong, power delivery is smooth and the throttle connection is amazing, it’s so good to have that back again.”

JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey was second quickest, setting a 1’33.4 before tipping off and he is followed by Michael Laverty on the second McAMS bike, who put in a 1’33.6 on his final run. Last year’s championship runner up Leon Haslam is fourth on a 1’33.7.

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