News

Just after 8 o’clock on Wednesday morning, the green light illuminated at the end of the Lausitzring pit lane as a private test began.

The test – featuring several riders from the World Superbike, World Supersport and Superstock 1000 categories – is to be staged until the end of Thursday. As this is a private test, no lap times will be publically revealed by the circuit. Weather conditions have been good all day, with no breeze while air temperatures hover around 22 degrees Celsius.

Much focus is on 2014 World Champion Sylvain Guintoli, whose appearance aboard the Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team YZF-R1 was a sight for sore eyes this morning; this is the Frenchman’s first ride on the bike since his heavy crash in Italy earlier this season. As ever, he is joined by team-mate Alex Lowes, who has travelled to Germany after visiting last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix to support brother and former World Supersport Champion Sam in the Moto2 World Championship.

Kawasaki is also in attendance, but Tom Sykes and reigning World Champion Jonathan Rea are learning the part oval/part infield circuit on standard ZX-10R bikes as opposed to their full WorldSBK-spec Kawasaki Racing Team machines. The third and final WorldSBK squad in action is the Honda WorldSBK Team, Michael van der Mark partnered by Nicky Hayden as the Sepang race winner experienced his first sample of the Lausitzring venue.

World Supersport is not without its representation. PJ Jacobsen (Honda World Supersport Team) is on-hand alongside Hayden and van der Mark, joined by WorldSSP counterparts Gino Rea and Aiden Wagner (GRT Racing Team), Federico Caricasulo (BARDAHL Evan Bros. Honda Racing), Lachlan Epis (Response RE Racing), Luke Stapleford (Profile Racing), Alex Baldolini (Race Department ATK#25), Hikari Okubo and Christoff Bergman (CIA Landlord Insurance Honda). Also on-track is Illia Mykhalchyk for the DS Junior Team, the Ukrainian rider celebrating his 20th birthday.

In the Superstock 1000 ranks, Julian Puffe – who will attend Saturday’s WorldSBK Ride In Frankfurt (Oder) event – is joined in the Agro On-Benjan-Kawasaki garage by MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 rider Bobby Fong of California. Also riding today are Jeremy Guarnoni (Pedercini Racing Kawasaki), Andrea Mantovani (Guandalini Racing Yamaha), Eric Vionnet and Thomas Toffel (Motos Vionnet), Luca Vitali (Team 2R Racing), Federico D’Annunzio (FDA Racing Team), Wayne Tessels (MTM / HS Kawasaki) and Rob Hartog (Team Hartog – Jenik – Against Cancer), as well as Triple-M Racing duo Marco Faccani and Luca Marconi.

This week’s test in Germany will end at 18:55 local time (GMT +2) on Thursday, after which a summary will follow on WorldSBK.com.