Two more days at the Circuito de Jerez - Angel Nieto, Andalucia, are in the books, and this time around, the field welcomed Honda HRC’s new faces Somkiat Chantra and Jake Dixon to the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship paddock. The riders didn’t need much time to get up to speed, and across both days, the riders improved their times as they meshed more with the bike, the team, and the paddock as a whole.

GETTING A GRIP: “We’re happy with the progress we've made. I need to do more laps on the bike and come to understand the tyre”

Somkiat Chantra was one of the two riders to make the jump from MotoGP to the WorldSBK paddock, a move which saw him stay with Honda machinery, but there is still plenty for the Thai 26-year-old to get his head around. One of the most notable differences to the #35 is the tyres, as he is more accustomed to Michelin tyres from the MotoGP paddock. Differences aside, Chantra was clearly enthusiastic about him and the team’s progress, and his progression will be one to watch in the coming months.

On his debut WorldSBK test Chantra said: “It was really nice in my first test with Honda HRC. We worked on many things with the team, and I tried to learn the bike and learn about the Pirelli tyres. We ran a lot of laps and tried to understand everything about the bike. Day by day, we were happier and happier, we started to improve our times and try more things. We’re happy with the progress we've made. I need to do more laps on the bike and come to understand the tyre; I found it difficult to stop the bike at times. With more laps and more confidence, I think we can push more next year. Compared to the MotoGP bike, they’re completely different. We tried to set up the electronics similar to a MotoGP bike and we found a good way of running it, and now we just need time to go step by step.”

ALL SMILES FROM DIXON: “I had a couple of crashes trying just to learn exactly how things are with it sometimes. I couldn’t be happier with the team”

After being called up to WorldSBK from Moto2, Jake Dixon felt pleased to be back on a comparatively larger superbike due to his experience in British superbikes as opposed to what he would have been riding in Moto2. Dixon’s times improved as the test went on, and while he crashed three times, to him it was all part of coming to understand the bike's limits. While the time in the garage making repairs saw them lose time preventing any time with the SCQ tyre, the plentiful long runs were enough to put a smile on the #96’s face when asked about his days in Jerez.

On his first test event in the paddock and his view of his crashes, Dixon said: “It was really really good, honestly, it’s so nice to be back on a big bike again, having that power is really really nice, but it’s a massive, massive learning curve. Unfortunately, I had a couple of crashes trying just to learn exactly how things are with it sometimes. I couldn’t be happier with the team. I’ve never been with a more professional team. There are more people in this team than I’ve ever had around me before, so that’s really nice. It’s just a massive learning curve, and I need to take my time with it. The crashes were a little silly, I was too over the limit with the braking, today I didn’t feel too good with the front, I crashed in Turn 2, it was nothing, and then the last one, I wheelied far too much coming out of T4, couldn’t get the bike stopped, ran into the gravel and put the bike down because the barrier was coming. I’m a little stiff from that last one, I could have done without that, to be fair. Not an ideal situation, but that’s racing. It’s been a great two days, a lot of laps, a lot of long runs. Unfortunately, because of the crash, we didn’t get to put a qualifying tyre in, so that’s all she wrote for today.”

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