WorldSBK.com caught up with Toni Elias for an interview about his season debut, his knee injury, his view on the 2014 eni FIM Superbike World Championship and much more.

First of all, WorldSBK.com and your fans would like to wish you a happy birthday. How are you feeling right now?
"Thank you! Great, I'm currently spending a lot of time in Rome as I need to stay with the team as much as I can, and I also have some meetings to attend. There is a lot of work to do and I hope to be testing before the next round. We might go to Jerez to continue our preparation for Aragon, I think we need some track time."

How much did the knee injury affect you during the Australian round?
"Four days before flying off to Australia I stretch the knee ligaments while doing motocross training. I didn't fell off the bike, but my foot got stuck and so my knee twisted a bit. I felt more comfortable on the bike though than in standing position, but surely this affected my weekend in some way."

How do you rate the first round?
"We improved a lot over the course of the weekend, we started off with a 2 seconds gap from the leaders, but we managed to narrow it down to half a second. Race 1 went completely wrong and my crash was one to remember. The team performed almost a miracle to fix the bike before the second race but just before hitting the track I realised something was wrong. We had an oil level problem and at first it seemed like there was nothing we could do. Only at the last minute the bike actually started and I was able to get on track, despite leaving a white cloud behind me due to that inconvenience."

With such a situation, the tension must have been tangible
"Starting from the last row was not the best, but I managed to pass many guys in the opening laps. I was about to catch the pack in front of me, but I reckon the lack of track-time during the winter was starting to show its effects. After Melandri ran wide I was able to tail him and pick up the pace a bit, so I ended up with an encouraging 10th place. Despite all that happened we showed we are not that far off the pace of factory teams."

Has the bike improved from last year? Did you notice any major improvement?
"Chassis wise the bike is very similar to the one I rode in 2013, but the engine is much better. Our top-speed was constantly near the top of the charts and I didn't see any big difference with the factory bikes. I think we are going to get an updated chassis for the second round, something the factory team had already in Australia. Those kind of things really help us in finding the best set-up for the bike and finding a good direction. Everything is going well with the team, even though we are not having an easy time in finding sponsors and budget. We're confident though and the atmosphere in the garage is great."

The second round is not that far now, and it is going to take place on a track you know quite well
"I like Aragon a lot. If we can do that test I mentioned earlier, we can get there in a good situation and definitely a better one than in Phillip Island. I would love to do well in front of my home crowd, as well as enjoying the race weekend and improve my performance."

Speaking of top speed, is the long straight at Aragon going to play in favour of the RSV4?
"The back straight is a really long one and it surely is a good thing for the Aprilias. I think the RSV4 suits this track very well, I guess the only difficult part of the lap will be the first one, from the start to the little 'corkscrew'. We need to concentrate on the front end of the bike because in Australia we had some small issues. If we test before Aragon, we will be able to sort this one out."