Britain’s Alex Lowes will make his debut on the factory Yamaha R1 World Superbike at Jerez tomorrow in the first of a series of winter tests.

The youngster, who will partner Sylvain Guintoli in the Crescent Racing-run squad, is looking forward to finally getting his hands on the bike but knows this is the start of a development year.

“When I get my first ride on the Yamaha tomorrow, potentially from that point on it can only get better if you work hard and improve. The actual level of the package compared to Jonathan Rea and the Kawasaki and other people on good bikes we don’t know, but if it’s as good as I think it can be then we can do a good job. It doesn’t mean I’ll go out and set a lap record straightway. I’ve never ridden the bike with WSBK electronics yet, so there is a lot of work to do,” said Lowes, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

For the full story on Lowes’ pre-season thoughts on the Yamaha, get Thursday’s issue of Bikesport News