PBM Aprilia's James Ellison left the two-day Jerez MotoGP test last week quietly confident that by the time the season opener at Qatar comes round, his team will have made up a lot of ground on existing CRT front-runner Randy de Puniet and they can start to take time out of the prototypes by mid-season.

Ellison flew to the Spanish track for his first look at the bike, spending half a day getting his riding position right. The next day was a full shakedown to try and get a base to work from before making any major setup decisions and starting to dial in the electronics and get used to the 2011-spec Bridgestone tyres.

"I hadn't ridden anything, save for a trials bike, since the Honda World Supersport bike at Portimao before I flew out to Jerez, and I though the Aprilia was going to rip my arms out of my sockets. You forget just how fast a proper racebike is when you haven't been on one for a while," said Ellison, speaking to bikesportnews.com this morning.

"It felt very fast but after a while riding round, your brain gets used to the speed and it became quite an easy bike to cope with. We found a couple of seconds in the time we were there and there was easily another second in me before we even started to play with the electronics.

"Towards the end of day two, we figured out the engine was still on 20 per cent throttle going into corners, which explained why I was finding it hard to stop. We have tried different fork oil limits, springs and the like but one of the main differences will be the carbon brakes.

"I think that, at our current level of development, they are worth a second a lap. If we were further down the line, then not so much but I followed Randy De Puniet around and the brakes was where he was making up most of the time on me but he was turning in quicker too so we know what we need to work on at Aragon.

"The Bridgestone tyres are weird but awesome. They have got so much grip and it doesn't seem to run out - maybe it is because we're not in a position to push them hard enough yet.

"It is a great starting point. This is a development year for the bike but I am more than hopeful that by the time we get to the next Jerez test and we have ridden with the rest of the CRT teams, we should be on their pace. Towards the end of this year, well, who can tell…"