Reigning World Superbike Champion Sylvain Guintoli has been ruled out of any further action at the Jerez test after a crash early on today.

The Pata Honda man strained his neck in the accident at turn one on only his third lap and will now return to the UK in order to seek treatment, a team spokesman confirmed to bikesportnews.com this evening.

Guintoli will have a couple of weeks’ recovery time before he is in action again for the official WSBK tests at Phillip Island, which kick off on February 16.