BMW’s Tom Sykes will have to stick with the engine spec he has used for the opening two WorldSBK rounds at Aragon this weekend as only some aerodynamic upgrades are ready.

Sykes, and team-mate Markus Reiterberger, have been outgunned in a straight line so far but the Huddersfield rider has a great chassis to work with, almost running into the back of the competition in turns.

“We have two back-to-back weekends but obviously we are first focusing on Aragón. It’s a circuit where I have done well in the past, and I hope with the style and the layout of the circuit that we are able to be very competitive on the BMW S1000RR,” said Sykes.

On most of the track we certainly have the chassis to do what’s needed. The only question from the previous experiences is our performance down the very long back straight.

“It’s obviously still a bit of an unknown but I feel that the whole BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team is doing a great job considering we still have to do a lot of testing during the actual race weekends.

“My expectations are that we will be continuing this way, enjoy our racing and for sure the rest will come naturally in the not too distant future.”

Team boss Shaun Muir is targeting the factory Yamahas over coming races and is determined to start a march into the top five.

“We are looking forward to some upgrades, regarding aerodynamics, which we worked on after the last race in Thailand. It was a lot of hard work by all the guys to get all the vehicles and equipment ready for the first European races. With some good weather we can hopefully start FP1 well and close that gap to the top four and we will see how the weekend develops.”