MSS Discovery Kawasaki teamsters Stuart Easton and Billy McConnell indulged in some friendly rivalry yesterday as both riders aimed to be the faster around the Guadix circuit. Eventually it was the Australian McConnell who took the honours, but his Scottish team-mate was only just behind. Despite the MSS team not yet having the ‘full-power’ engine spec here at the Spanish tests, the team are buoyed by how close they are to teams who have many more testing miles under their belts.

Stuart Easton, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R
“Another good day in a positive winter test schedule. Billy’s a little faster than me here, after I was quicker than him at Almeria. Obviously him being ahead isn’t the plan! I wanted to be in the 14s, but I did a 15-dead. Even half a tenth below that would make me feel better! Either way the bike feels good and I’m confident of improving still further in the next day or two.”

Billy McConnell, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R
“I’m going well here and it’s another good day of testing! The track here is very different to Almeria. Almeria is more fast and flowing but Guadix is probably more representative of the sort of tracks we get back in the UK – much more stop-start. I’m happy with progress so far, but by the time we leave here I would love to be somewhere in the 1m 13s bracket. We’ll see what I can do!”

Nick Morgan, Team Owner
“It’s nice to see a little friendly rivalry here at Guadix between the two boys! With Stuart having the edge at Almeria, Billy’s been on it here and I know Stuart will be gunning for a big improvement over the course of the test. With all the British Superbike teams having tested here before, we have times to aim for – somewhere in the 1m 13s would be nice. We’re very happy with the fact that we’re less than a second off some of the bigger teams who are further down their testing schedules than we are. It’s going well for us at the moment.”