The WorldSBK ‘winter season’ kick-started today with Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike Team) on track at MotorLand Aragon for the first of two days of private testing. The riders were unable to make the most of the track-time available to them, due to the changeable weather encountered at the Spanish venue.

Despite the morning’s overcast sky, quite favourable temperatures allowed both riders to begin their work aboard their respective bikes, before intermittent rain began falling around midday. Davies then ventured out on track in the early afternoon for a handful of laps under damp conditions.

In the last half hour of the day, Sykes was able to lap again on dry conditions aboard his all-black machinery displaying the ‘Winter Test’ logo.

The 2013 WorldSBK Champion was able to try a ‘hybrid’ ZX-10R, still based on the 2015 model but with some important updates developed for the new version of the Ninja machine, which was presented to the public earlier this month in Barcelona. The 30-year-old Englishman hit the track also yesterday for few laps, in the day that was mainly dedicated to the media who wished to try firsthand the ‘green’ superbike.

The other half of the Kawasaki Racing Team line-up, 2015 WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea, is sitting out this first outing of the off-season as he assisting his wife in the birth of their second child.

Davies was also the only rider representing his team at Aragon, meaning he has to carry all the workload on his shoulders. The Welshman’s Race Engineer, Alberto Colombo, has described today’s duties this way. “We brought here many 2016 parts as our goal is to evaluate them one by one, in order to understand the eventual benefits of each upgrade. We are working on electronics, chassis and weight distribution. The weather did not help today, but we still have tomorrow and some other outings before the end of the year.”