BSB: Rain halts progress for Byrne in Jerez

MCE British Superbike Champion Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne enjoyed a rapid start to his second test of the 2017 season at Jerez this week to lap within 0.4 seconds of World Superbike man Tom Sykes.

Byrne lapped the Jerez circuit with a time of 1’41.370 to place third quickest at the WSB/BSB test on Wednesday and had hoped to make further progress on the second day of the test until rain meant they couldn’t get out on track.

Byrne’s Wednesday time was 0.5 seconds quicker than BSB rival Leon Haslam recorded at Jerez the previous week, although Haslam was testing with the Bournemouth Kawasaki for the first time and had a number of new components to understand.

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“I think it’s fair to say that we need to say a big thank you to the boss man, Paul Bird, for getting us back out riding in January again,” he said. 

“We’ve been very fortunate to get to work through a few bits and pieces and more importantly, to blow out the winter cobwebs. We got two good days in Portugal and a good few hours at Jerez, having not been there for 12 years, so it was great fun to ride there. We started making some good progress with chassis settings on the first day in Jerez and looked forward to continuing that work today but unfortunately it rained all day bringing a premature end to our testing. We have some new parts on the horizon and can hopefully get back to Spain in March to be sure we’re fully prepared for what promises to be another great season.”

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