Milwaukee Yamaha's James Ellison says he is back to where he should be in the grand scheme of MCE British Superbikes, staying on the pace of Alex Lowes and Shane Byrne during testing at Snetterton and putting the disappointment of Knockhill behind him.

The Kendal man was fourth on yesterday's timesheet after a last-gasp lap from Jakub Smrz topped the table, and his final run of laps saw consistent pace in the late 1'49s and comparable to that of Alex Lowes who did a similar simulation.

"We are back to where we should be now I think. It's been a frustrating time because a few fans have said to me that we are struggling this season, and we're not. We had a tough time at Knockhill and we have had some bad luck in other races," said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com at Snetterton.

"We left the first three rounds as the fastest rider, with the fastest lap, and podiumed in each one. It was a strong showing and we were always at the front. We got to Knockhill and I think we were a bit under-prepared.

"We should have been testing but the team were committed with the TT and that's just the position we were in. We didn't have the time on the bike we should have done in that five week break. We started off on the wrong foot in Scotland and by the time I had figured out a few things to improve my riding, it was too late.

"We were always going to have a bogey race and hopefully that was it. The Yamaha is not particularly good around there and even when we got it feeling good, I was still struggling through the slow corners.

"The bike is different to the way Tommy (Hill) has it last year. It has more torque, so if you're not revving it hard, all it wants to do is pivot around the rear wheel so you either have to take something out of it to calm it down or stand on the back brake. Through all the flowing stuff I didn't feel I was losing anything but you get to the hairpin and I was losing ten bikes lengths to one rider.

"It is always a full team effort when we do well and the same when we do not so well. It showed that weekend but Shan (Muir, team owner) has already stepped up and said we need to go testing so we are going to. He has said there is no testing cap in terms of budget, just the amount of days BSB allow.

"We finished the test in fourth, Smrz put a mega lap in at the end but take that out, we were third and me, Alex and Shane were close. When I look at it like that, I'm pretty happy."