Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki San Carlo Puccetti Racing) had limited dry track time during his team‰Ûªs second winter test but in an intense final afternoon Sofuoglu set very strong lap times as his Italian-based team worked on evaluating new settings and race parts for the 2015 FIM Supersport World Championship season.
Track time was limited on day one due to wet and then very slowly drying conditions and it took until the final few hours of day two to get a consistently dry surface to ride on.
In working between two specifications of engine set-up Sofuoglu made an improvement in his pace compared to his fastest race lap time at the Jerez race last September. Italian rider Marco Faccani shared track time with Sofuoglu at the Jerez test on the team‰Ûªs second Ninja ZX-6R, to speed up the development and testing programme.
Sofuoglu posted a best lap of 1‰Ûª43.7, despite working on what he felt was still not quite optimum track and grip conditions at the challenging 4.423km long Jerez circuit in the south west of Spain.
‰ÛÏWe worked very hard and well in this test." Sofuoglu said. "The first day was fully wet and then not fully dry and we only got good track conditions on the second day after two o‰Ûªclock. So we had only four hours of dry track time to work on everything.
"There was some grip issues so I think the track condition was still not the very best. We worked hard right to the end. With the bad weather and delays it did not go the way I wanted all the time but if you look at the best lap time we were half a second faster compared to qualification last year, and I went over a second faster than my fastest lap of the race. Even then I can‰Ûªt say we were at our limit.
"There are still things to improve. We now know what to do at the next Jerez test. The team is working very well and this is what I needed. I am so happy to work in this young and fresh team and they really want to win.‰Û
