Tom Sykes enjoyed three days of good weather during unofficial tests at Phillip Island, Sykes was frequently heading up the time sheets against his many competitors.

On his Ninja ZX-10R Sykes was fastest on day one, then went second fastest on day two and on a race tyre setting he was only a tenth of a second off reigning champion, Carlos Checa, on the final day.

Sykes was particularly satisfied that the bike’s base settings, which he has been perfecting over a few winter tests sessions, worked at a warm Phillip Island with only minor tweaks and adjustments as the temperatures changed.

Today was the hottest of the three, but track action was interrupted many times during this test in general, because of crashes and several forms of wildlife that strayed onto the track quite frequently.

“Day three went pretty well. We tried out a lot of things again, in the hot conditions this time.” said Sykes.

“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.”

“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.”