Factory Kawasaki's Tom Sykes showed he has found the outright pace of Kawasaki's new ZX-10R at Phillip Island, setting the second fastest time of the three-day World Superbike test and only giving best to reigning champion Carlos Checa but a single tenth of a second.

The Huddersfield man's quickest lap of 1'31.9 also put him as the top British rider in attendance and three tenths ahead of nearest rival Leon Haslam, who was third fastest overall on the BMW S1000RR.

"We tried out a lot of things again, in the hot conditions this time. We had good consistency and found a bit of a better bike balance for me. Through all our tests we have explored a lot of areas, gathered a lot of information, but finally it looks like our base setting from winter testing is pretty good," said Sykes.

"This is the third or fourth race circuit, in a wide range of temperatures, that it has worked at. We did some fine-tuning and managed our lap times quite well. It is difficult to see exactly where our competitors are at in terms of set-up but ultimately we have had a successful test and have set ourselves up nicely for the official tests next week. Hopefully we will have two days of decent weather and that will prepare us for the beginning of the season.”