Reigning Bennetts British Superbike Champion Tarran Mackenzie admitted to being a little surprised at his pace during the Snetterton test after spending the last two month recovering from a big crash.

Having broken his ankle and dislocated his shoulder in January, Mackenzie was apprehensive ahead of the opening test. Not certain he’d ride until a little over a week ago, the little Scotsman rolled out of pit lane on Friday morning.

Under the instruction to take it gently and ease himself back in, Mackenzie focused on building his bike strength up but soon felt able to improve the bike and his lap time. While his ankle was fine, his shoulder did cause him some discomfort but in spite of this, he ended the test seventh fastest just over half a second off O’Halloran’s time.

“Overall I’m really happy, having had two months of pretty much nothing but recovery and little training I didn’t know how I’d feel on the bike. I’ve surprised myself a little bit as I didn’t feel too bad with my shoulder or fitness wise either," said Mackenzie.

"Over the last two days I have got more confident and comfortable with the bike, which was pretty much the same as it was at Snetterton last year, so it was just about doing laps and getting the feeling back.

"In that last run we made a little change to the bike which helped a lot and I gained some confidence, it was only seven laps but it was the longest run I’d done over the three days so I’m happy with that. It’s put us in a good direction with myself and the bike moving forward.”