Kawasaki Racing Team riders Tom Sykes and Loris Baz enter the seventh round of the SBK championship in confident mood after finding even more improvements in testing with their Ninja ZX-10R machines.
A two-day test session at Motorland Aragon, shortly after the most recent race of the season at Portimao, showed both riders that there are still untapped areas of potential in their machines' capabilities and overall race set-up.
With both Tom and Loris already operating in the upper echelons of the championship table, with Sykes second and Baz sixth, Imola is a definite opportunity for each rider to narrow the points gap and aim for silverware in the process.
Sykes has already shown that Imola is a circuit he can race well at, having scored second in both races at the Italian city centre venue in 2012 while riding his Ninja ZX-10R for the official team. On the back of a podium finish and a no-score at the previous Portimao race, Sykes is keen to get back into action to push for more race wins to add to his total of three in the season so far.
‰ÛÏImola is a track where even on the older model of Ninja ZX-10R I was competitive." Sykes explained. "Last year the bike was working great and even though we used a harder tyre than race winner Carlos Checa we pushed him quite a lot.
"We all have many reasons to have memories of Imola, partly because we have had good results there in the past, but also because my previous team-mate Joan Lascorz suffered a serious injury there last year. I met him at a recent test and it was very nice to see him again.
"Overall Imola is a circuit I hope we can be strong at once again. I think the riders that have been battling at the front so far for most of this year will be battling it out at Imola again.‰Û
