Jordi Torres admits he will need to be ready for all weather conditions in this weekend’s opening round of the Superbike World Championship at Phillip Island. The Althea BMW rider has endured an injury-hit pre-season but ended on a high with ninth position in Australia.
The two-day test was marred by constantly changing weather conditions but Torres was happy with his BMW machine in the wet and the dry, and thinks that should serve him well this weekend.
“Today hasn’t gone badly. This morning I started to build confidence and lap more consistently with my BMW. We continued to compare the two bikes with their different configurations and then, with the one that seems to perform better, I made some fast laps. In the afternoon, the track temperature was a lot higher and things were more difficult. We focused on trying to improve feeling in these conditions, considering that it might be similar for the upcoming races.”
Team-mate Markus Reiterberger suffered a crash in Tuesday’s afternoon session, leaving him down in fifteenth, but the German was still keen to take the positives from the test.
“We had some positive feelings today. First, we compared the two bikes, in their 2016 and 2017 configurations. I struggled to do a very fast lap in the morning while in the second session, I improved both my feeling and my rhythm with bike 1, the 2017 bike. I was completing a good long run but unfortunately, I made a small mistake and suffered a fast crash. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt but I’m just sorry for the work I’ve caused for the mechanics. I went back out on bike 2, which was useful as I’m now sure that the bike we will use this weekend is bike 1. I know we can make further improvement.”