PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
Despite a patchy and slippery track surface in places, Sylvain Barrier’s BMW Motorrad Italia team clocked him with a 1:43.0, with most other riders way short of this level on a day of tricky track conditions. Most had also finished up their test programs earlier than the French rider, who was using the new S1000RR.
“We worked only on the electronics and I feel we have a lot of potential with this bike,” said Barrier. “On the rest of the bike we did not change one spring, or close the preload, nothing. We took the set-up from the race, put it in the new bike and said ‘let’s go’. We will work more on the electronics side and after I think everything will go in a good place. On the track there were some patches where it was still wet but I stopped a little early because the sun went away and could not see where it was wet and not wet. But the track got quite dry, except for some patches.”
With most of the teams, from World Superbike and MotoGP, already gone it was just up to Michele Pirro’s Ducati test team to set laps for the Grand Prix class, while Kawasaki, Ducati, BMW Motorrad Italia and MV Agusta were the only full World Superbike teams on display. Two MV Agusta Supersport machines and two Ducati Superstock bikes completed the small field of riders on the last day.
Nobody got close to the kind of times the best riders were setting in the dry sessions earlier in the week, so Voltcom Crescent Suzuki’s Alex Lowes ended up the fastest World Superbike rider over the entire five day test with a 1:40.730 set on Tuesday afternoon. Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso was the fastest MotoGP rider overall, with a 1:38.9 set without a transponder on Wednesday.
No times were given today for Pirro, nor the Ducati Superbike pairing of Chaz Davies and Davide Giugliano, because track conditions were so unpredictable. None of them were running transponders.
Kawasaki finished early and only had Tom Sykes performing practice starts, while Jonathan Rea did 14 laps before also stopping long before the official finish at 6 p.m.
Davies was another who finished before the final whistle. As the sun dropped he also had visibility problems in a series of fast corners and decided to stop.
2014 World Superbike
Jerez Winter Test Times
1. Sylvain Barrier (BMW) WSBK – 1:43.0
2. Lorenzo Zanetti (MV Agusta) WSS – 1:47.444
3. Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta) WSS 1:47.669
4. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) WSBK – 1:52.616
5. Fabio Massei (Ducati) STK – 1:52.954
6. Leon Camier (MV Agusta) WSBK – 1:54.195
7. Tony Covena (Ducati) STK – 1:58.058
