Metzeler National Superstock front runner David Johnson is happy with the times he put in as a wildcard at the first World Superbike tests of 2012 even though he had to run a stock engine in his BMW S1000RR.

The native Aussie, who plies his trade in the UK, had to change motors after his race version expired but he still managed a 1'34.1s lap using British Superbike-spec Pirelli rubber with no electronic help as he hasn't been able to set up the bikes's Pectel system.

"I cannot believe we did this well with this stock engine. Our race engine had problems on day 1 of the test but it will be ready to roll again for race weekend and it will be all good. We just brought customer Pirelli tyres here from BSB but we have been setting our bike up with soft race tyres and we are getting good longevity out of it," said Johnson.

"I think we will be OK for race weekend, the WSBK spec rubber is supposed to be a lot better. The team is working great together and we have long time WSBK and BSB mechanic legend Dave Martin as our chief mechanic and he has worked wonders with the chassis setup. We have not yet got the Pectel traction control to work but we have a gun technician coming for the race weekend to sort that out.

"The bike will be so much better by first practice of the race weekend. Unfortunately, we will not be at the official tests next week so we don't have a chance to try out the new race engine but I'm confident that our chassis setup will work great with the extra horse power. After watching everyones long stints over the three days it's clear that tyre wear will be a major issue as their times dropped off a great deal after a few laps. I can't wait to get back out there."