Kawasaki's Tom Sykes was surprised by the amount of fast laps he was able to get out of Pirelli's softer tyre compound during yesterday's World Superbike test at Moscow on his way to setting the third fastest time.

Sykes was only two-tenths slower than fastest man Carlos Checa, concentrating on finding a setup to use with the harder tyre, but then did a run on the softer version and found he could make it last a decent length of time.

“Overall, a positive day for myself and Kawasaki on a new track for everybody. We did a lot of work on the hard tyre and then when we put the softer tyre in we were surprised that we were getting good life out of it," said Sykes.

"We did make a number of small changes today, pretty much always in a positive direction, and big thanks to all my boys in the team. We have had a productive test. We have some things to do for the weekend but really not many, because today turned out well. We put a lot of laps in and hopefully that should make things more relaxed for race weekend itself.”