Tom Sykes says he struggled to find the speed this morning as the World Superbike championship resumed at the Lausitzring, despite posting the third fastest time later in the day.

The Kawasaki man hopes to pick up where he left off before the summer break when he won the last race at Laguna Seca, to close the gap to his team-mate and championship leader Jonathan Rea.

After emerging the strongest of the two today as he ended the second free practice session with the third fastest time, Sykes admitted it had been hard, and not without its challenges.

“We’ve made so many changes, we had a test here on a standard ZX10R which was useful in a way but we had a lot of work to do,” he said. “As soon as I jumped on the race bike this morning, the circuit was so much more different but actually quite easy, a lot easier than I’d expected.

“I really struggled to find some speed this morning, this afternoon also really, really struggling but in the end we found something and I think we have to be happy with the setup we have. I feel that we’re quite fast, quite consistent so yeah, really looking forward to tomorrow.”

Sykes also appeared to shrug off concerns that rain and bad weather are heading for the German track overnight, and seems unfazed at the threat of at least one wet race this weekend.

“Unfortunately it looks like we have some bad weather approaching which is a shame because we have good speed compared to our close competition in the championship.

“But, tomorrow in the wet we’ll start again, we have a good feeling in the dry so we’re ready for the races but in the wet we’ll try our setup in the morning.”