Kawasaki's Tom Sykes spent three days at Valencia testing and developing a new ride-by-wire throttle system on the 2012 ZX-10R World Superbike along with myriad other improvements in suspension, electronics and geometry settings.

The Huddersfield rider was four tenths of a second underneath the pole position time set by Cal Crutchlow the last time World Superbikes competed at the Spanish circuit early last year, lapping in 1'33.1s.

“The tests went well and we ended up doing a 1’33.1 lap time on a race tyre. We have worked through a lot of different things, we are working well in the garage and I am relaxed. It is no secret that when I’m relaxed I work my best. We have had some good weather - consistent weather - in Valencia and that made it better to work through all we needed to do. We have a new electronics package and found a better overall machine balance for me," said Sykes.

"We also went well at Aragon even though we only really had half a good day there, because of weather and some car tyre rubber laid on the track surface. Once the conditions improved it took us only four outings of four laps each to beat the kind of lap times I set at the race last summer.

"Right now we are on a package that we have not changed so much between the two tests. We have a fairly good base setting that works for race distance and, when we put new tyres in, for a fast lap time as well. I think we have come a long way even since the post-season Portimao test. The bike tells me what it is doing quite a lot better than before, and the improved feedback tells me when I am arriving at the limit.”