Max Cook was fastest at the first BSB preseason test at Donington Park last weekend aboard BSB’s newest bike, the Bimota KB998.
The FS-3 team Cook rides for was previously the official BSB team of Kawasaki, but with the factory WorldSBK team adopting Bimota machinery last year as part of Kawasaki’s own restructuring of its racing programme it was perhaps only a matter of time before the BSB team followed suit.
The result is that the KB998 is making its debut in BSB this year, and it made a positive start to life at the Donington test with Cook ending fastest.
“It was pretty good, to be fair,” Cook said, speaking to Crash.net during the Donington BSB test last weekend.
“The bike’s a mega bike, it does what I want it to do, feels like a race bike.
“The full support, we’ve got the entire package – the guys from World Superbike are here helping us along with it all. So, I’m just really blown away by the whole thing.
“I think to [set a personal best lap time] at Donington on a windy day like today [Saturday] – I’m well happy.”
He added: “Everything that’s new at World Superbike, what they develop and find that’s better, will be coming to us straight away.
“So, [...] it’s only going to get better from here.”
Cook added that the Bimota is helping him in braking compared to the Kawasaki he rode last year.
“There’s no complaints from me or the bike,” he said. “It only works when you’re kind of pushing it as hard as you can, that’s when you start to get feel from it because it is so stiff.
“Overall it is a really nice package.”
He added: “My weakness has been heavy on the brakes, but this bike has allowed me to really pull that front brake lever and get as late as I can on the brakes.
“Just a bit of a weak point in that sense, but that’s from my side – the bike is very good on the brakes.
“So, I’ve ticked a box in that, I’ve improved that, it’s been a target and that’s what I can work on.”
<H2>Talbot “not too bad for my first outing”
On the other side of the Bimota box this year is Joe Talbot. The 22-year-old was unable to match his teammate’s ultimate speed, but in his first official BSB test was able to finish 11th on the combined times and was within a second of the fastest time.
“For sure, I was in a second of my teammate, and he was the fastest, so within a second of the fastest time isn’t too bad for my first outing, really,” Talbot told Crash.net after the final session at the Donington BSB test on 3–4 April.
“It’s a big difference, the Superbike, to any other class that I’ve rode in; you’ve got to stay on the ball, you’ve got to be concentrating every session, every lap, really, because the thing can bite you. So, a big learning curve for me.
“I’m a second off, so as a rider you know you’re a second off, but the reality is that that’s a good job for my first official test, so if I can keep improving – like, this [test] I’ve improved every session and that’s the way I want to keep on progressing.”
