Source: Supplied.

Following the two World Superbike races in Jerez over the weekend, the majority of teams stayed on for Monday’s post-race test, where riders and crew took advantage of track time to evaluate the 2017 upgrades.

A total of 15 riders submitted lap times throughout the day, with most sampling new or modified components ahead of the 2017 season. This was certainly the case for the world champion Kawasaki Racing Team which next year, due to rule changes.

Kawasaki will no longer be able to use split throttle bodies, while the Honda WorldSBK Team and MV Agusta Reparto Corse are another two teams set to be affected by this alteration and worked accordingly. At Aruba.it Racing Ducati, new parts for 2017 included a raft of suspension components.

The best time came from Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team), posting 1m40.815s to comfortably move underneath his race record from 2015. The top five was completed by teammate Tom Sykes, Jerez double race winner Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing Ducati), Sylvain Guintoli (Pata Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Honda WorldSBK Team).

Yamaha looked to reconfirm its direction of development route for 2016 as well as sampling 2017 development parts and components for the upcoming Qatar race next weekend, while Honda’s focus was on new brake calipers, clutch settings and new steering dampers as well as working with the aforementioned stock throttle body. They also ran new front forks and axle clamps, something sampled by the Althea BMW Racing Team as well.

A raft of riders featured in the Pedercini Racing garage. Saeed Al Sulaiti rode the World Superbike machine, focusing on engine braking settings and traction control maps, as the Italian outfit tested its Superstock 1000 bike with World Supersport rider Illia Mykhalchyk and STK1000 regular Sebestien Suchet.

Further up the pit lane, Team Toth and Peter Sebestyen carried out a back-to-back comparison of a new specification engine against the powerplant raced to the Hungarian rider’s first points finish on Saturday. Later in the day, Mykhalchyk switched machines as he sampled the Toth Yamaha YZF-R1.

Riders to suffer turn one crashes included Mykhalchyk, Al Sulaiti and Davide Giugliano (Aruba.it Racing Ducati), while Althea duo Jordi Torres and Markus Reiterberger also experienced off-track moments during the day. In the final hour, Sykes ground to a halt with a technical problem at the first corner.

All of the teams worked with new tyres from Pirelli as the Italian company supplied two new front and three new rear solutions. The WorldSBK paddock will regroup next week for the Qatar season finale under the floodlights of Doha’s Losail International Circuit.