Davide Giugliano and Chaz Davies are both happy with their preparations with the 2016 World Superbike season just one month away. The Aruba.it Ducati riders were second and third respectively behind Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes after two days of running at Jerez with both racking up a century of laps aboard the Panigale.
Giugliano has only completed limited mileage after the injury which curtailed his 2015 campaign but the Italian is encouraged with the rate of progress in testing so far.
“I’m definitely happy. Since yesterday, my team managed to gradually tailor the bike to my needs and allowed me to make a step forward compared with Portimão. We worked a lot with used tyres to solve some issues I had in the past. It was important to adopt this approach. To be able to get back to the level I was used to, after such a long break and only four days of testing, gives me confidence.”
Davies, last season’s championship runner-up, is also upbeat and believes the team have taken a major step forward with their long run pace.
“In these past couple of days, we were able to focus on fine-tuning the chassis and electronics. My feeling with the 2016 bike is already quite good and, compared with the tests we did here in Jerez last November, we’ve made a big step forward. I managed to stay close to the top riders with qualifying tyres, which has never been my strongest suit, while we were the fastest on race tyres. I go home tired but very happy.”
The final pre-season test will take place at Phillip Island on February 22-23, less than a week before the season opener at the same venue.
